^^^^  Of  ?nwc^ 


BOOKS  BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


THE  SYNOPTIC  PROBLEM 
THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES 

THE  MOST  BEAUTIFUL  BOOK  EVER  WRITTEN 
PAUL  AND  HIS  EPISTLES 
JOHN  AND  HIS  WRITINGS 

THE  SYNOPTIC  GOSPELS  AND  THE  BOOK  OF  ACTS 


Great  Characters  of  the 
New  Testament 

By 
Doremus  A.  Hayes 


THE    METHODIST    BOOK    CONCERN 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 

SMITH  &  LAMAR 
NASHVILLE  DALLAS  RICHMOND 


Copyright,  1920,  by 
DOREMUS  A.  HAYES 


Ox  Jhe  Bible  text  pnnted  in  italics  m  this  volume  is  taken  from  the  American 
btandard  Edition  of  the  Revised  Bible,  copyright,  19CI,  by  Thomas  Nelson  & 
00ns,  and  is  used  by  permission. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

Introduction 7 

I.  Judas  Maccabeus,   a   Leader   of   Pre- 

New-Testament  Times 9 

II.  John  the  Baptist 17 

III.  Jesus  the  Leader 24 

IV.  Jesus  the  Teacher 31 

V.  Jesus  the  Messiah 38 

VI.  Simon     Peter,     the    Leader     of     the 

Apostles 45 

VII.  Paul  the  Missionary 51 

VIII.  Paul  the  Pastor 57 

IX.  Paul  the  Statesman  and  Writer 63 

X.  The  Unknown  Apostolate 69 

XI.  John  the  Beloved 76 

XII.  How  the  New  Testament  Was  Written  83 


INTRODUCTION 

This  book  has  been  written  by  the  author  at  the 
request  of  the  editors.  It  is  offered  as  an  elective 
course  in  Bible  study  for  teachers  and  for  young 
people  who  look  forward  to  teaching.  Together 
with  a  companion  volume,  Great  Characters  of  the 
Old  Testament,  it  is  intended  especially  for  those 
who  are  not  prepared  for  the  study  of  the  more 
thorough  Bible  study  textbooks  of  our  curriculum 
of  training.  There  is  no  thought  on  the  part  of 
either  author  or  editors  that  the  book  is  a  sufficient 
or  complete  textbook  on  the  New  Testament.  It  is 
believed  to  be  so  simply  written  and  so  interesting 
a  narrative  that  it  can  be  used  in  situations  where  a 
more  thorough  and  technical  treatment  would  be 
impracticable.  It  is  hoped  that  the  use  of  this  book 
will  create  an  interest  in  the  New  Testament  that 
will  lead  to  further  study.  It  is  intended  to  serve 
merely  as  an  introduction  to  New-Testament  study. 

There  is  much  to  be  said  for  an  approach  to  the 
study  of  the  Bible  through  its  great  characters.  The 
author  of  the  Epistle  of  Hebrews  opens  with  this 
declaration:  ^'God,  having  of  old  time  spoken  unto 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION 

the  fathers  in  the  prophets,  .  .  .  hath  at  the  end  of 
these  days  spoken  unto  us  in  his  Son.  .  .  ."  The 
language  is  significant.  God  hath  spoken  in  the 
prophets.  He  hath  spoken  in  the  apostles.  Above 
all  hath  he  spoken  in  his  Son.  The  characters  and 
lives  of  the  great  men  of  the  Bible  are  in  a  very  real 
and  true  sense  the  Word  of  God.  To  become  ac- 
quainted with  them,  to  understand  the  motives  by 
which  they  were  moved,  to  see  them  in  action,  to 
hold  fellowship  with  them,  is  to  understand  the 
thought  and  purpose  and  will  of  God. 

There  is  a  kind  of  Bible  study  that  has  a  tendency 
to  become  lost  in  the  mechanics  of  the  process. 
Students  have  been  known  to  become  so  absorbed 
in  the  problems  of  authorship,  dates,  and  textual 
criticism  as  to  miss  entirely  the  great  moral  and 
spiritual  meanings  of  the  Word.  A  study  of  the 
lives  of  the  great  men  of  the  Bible  is  not  subject  to 
this  danger. 

The  study  of  the  textbook  should  be  accompanied 
by  a  parallel  reading  and  study  of  the  Bible.  The 
extent  of  such  study  to  be  expected  in  a  particular 
case  can  be  best  determined  by  the  teacher.  In  every 
instance  some  assignments  for  reading  and  study 
should  be  made. 

The  Editors. 


CHAPTER  I 

JUDAS  MACCABEUS,  A  LEADER  OF  PRE- 
NEW-TESTAMENT  TIMES 

The  eleventh  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews has  been  called  the  Westminster  Abbey  of 
the  New  Testament.  It  contains  the  honor  roll  of 
God's  heroes  of  the  faith.  It  lists  the  great  names 
from  Abel  to  Moses  and  tells  something  of  their 
great  deeds.  Then,  as  time  fails  in  which  to  make 
the  list  complete,  the  author  gives  a  summary  of  the 
victories  of  the  later  heroes  down  to  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees.  Of  these  he  says  that  they  were  "desti- 
tute, afflicted,  ill-treated  (of  whom  the  world  was 
not  worthy),  wandering  in  deserts  and  mountains 
and  caves,  and  the  holes  of  the  earth."  In  First 
Maccabees  we  are  told  how  Mattathias  and  his 
sons  were  made  to  flee  into  the  mountains,  and  in 
Second  Maccabees  the  Jews  tell  how  they  kept  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles  "when  they  were  wandering 
in  the  fields  and  the  caves  after  the  manner  of  wild 
beasts."  The  author  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews 
may  have  had  these  passages  in  mind  when  he  wrote 

9 


10  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

the  closing  words  of  his  summary,  and  he  thought 
that  while  the  world  was  not  worthy  of  these  heroes 
among  the  Maccabees,  they  were  well  worthy  of  a 
place  in  his  list.  We  likewise  may  deem  them 
worthy  of  our  study. 

The  armies  of  Alexander  the  Great  had  con- 
quered all  of  the  East,  and  upon  his  death  his  em- 
pire was  divided  among  his  generals.  The  land  of 
the  Jews  fell  to  one  of  these  and  so  came  under  the 
Greek  dominion  and  influence.  It  was  the  aim  of 
the  Greek  conquerors  to  introduce  Greek  culture 
and  civilization  among  their  subjects  in  the  Orient. 
Many  of  the  Jews  were  ready  to  adopt  the  new 
customs,  and  in  the  course  of  time  most  of  them 
seem  to  have  joined  themselves  with  the  heathen 
and  to  have  forgotten  the  strict  observance  of  the 
Jewish  law.  There  were  the  pious,  who  clung  to 
the  traditions  of  the  fathers,  but  more  and  more 
the  people  seemed  inclined  to  forsake  these  and  to 
enjoy  the  greater  freedom  of  the  foreign  ways. 

At  last  Antiochus  Epiphanes  thought  that  the 
right  time  had  come  to  root  out  the  Jewish  religion 
altogether  and  to  put  in  its  place  the  heathen  wor- 
ship and  faith.  He  took  possession  of  the  city  of 
Jerusalem  and  of  the  Temple.  He  profaned  the 
holy  place.  He  ordered  that  all  the  Jewish  sacrifices 
should  cease,  that  the  Sabbath  should  no  longer  be 
kept,  and  that  the  Jews  should  build  altars  to  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  ii 

heathen  gods  and  do  all  their  worshiping  before 
these.  The  rich  and  those  in  political  positions  and 
even  some  of  the  priests  were  disposed  to  fall  into 
line  with  the  royal  decree.  The  king's  will  was  done 
in  Jerusalem,  but  things  did  not  go  so  well  in  the 
country. 

A  priest  named  Mattathias  had  withdrawn  to  a 
little  village  some  thirteen  miles  west  of  Bethel; 
and  when  the  king's  messengers  came  there  (to 
Modin)  to  compel  the  people  to  sacrifice  to  the 
heathen  gods,  Mattathias  told  them  that  even  if  all 
the  nations  obeyed  King  Antiochus  so  as  to  depart 
from  the  law  of  the  fathers,  he  and  his  sons  and 
his  brethren  would  be  true  to  that  law  until  death. 
Then  when  a  Jew  came  forward  to  sacrifice  to  the 
idols,  Mattathias  slew  him  and  also  the  king's  agent 
and  representative  and  then  called  upon  all  who 
would  be  faithful  to  Israel's  God  to  follow  him  and 
his  sons  into  the  mountains,  where  they  might 
escape  from  the  wrath  and  power  of  the  king.  It 
was  a  most  daring  act.  It  was  raising  the  flag  of 
revolt  against  a  great  empire.  It  seemed  utterly 
hopeless.  This  father  and  his  five  sons  set  out  to 
free  the  Jews  from  the  hated  foreign  tyranny. 
Many  joined  them,  and  a  considerable  army  was 
raised.  When  Mattathias  came  to  die  he  called  all 
his  sons  together  and  recited  to  them  his  own  list 
of  the  heroes  of  the  faith  in  all  the  Jewish  history 


12  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

and  exhorted  them  to  consider  that  in  all  the  genera- 
tions none  that  trusted  God  ever  had  failed  in 
strength.  Then  he  appointed  Judas,  his  third  son, 
to  be  the  leader  of  the  army  and  to  manage  the  war 
of  the  people. 

The  after  history  justified  his  choice.  Judas 
came  to  be  known  as  "the  Hammerer,"  who  dealt 
sturdy  blow  upon  blow  upon  the  enemy  until  the 
Jewish  arms  came  to  be  famous  and  respected 
through  the  whole  world.  In  one  year  he  had  de- 
feated the  Syrian  generals  Apollonius  and  Seron, 
although  they  had  superior  forces,  and  his  own 
people  had  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  attempting 
conclusions  with  them.  Judas  replied:  *'There  is 
no  difference  in  the  sight  of  the  God  of  heaven  to 
deliver  with  a  great  multitude  or  with  a  small  com- 
pany; for  the  success  of  war  is  not  in  the  multitude 
of  the  army,  but  strength  cometh  from  heaven." 
His  faith  was  honored  in  the  complete  overthrow 
of  the  foe. 

Antiochus  was  angry  as  well  as  very  disappointed, 
and  he  sent  half  of  his  army  to  destroy  these  rebel- 
lious Jews.  His  kinsman  Lysias  was  in  charge  of 
the  expedition,  and  three  famous  generals  com- 
manded the  forces.  They  arranged  beforehand 
with  slave  dealers  to  purchase  the  Jewish  prisoners 
they  were  sure  to  capture  and  came  on  with  a  great 
multitude  of  men.    Judas  and  his  army  fasted  and 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  13 

prayed  for  one  day  at  Mizpah  and  then  went  out 
to  meet  them;  for  Judas  had  said  to  them:  "It  is 
better  for  us  to  die  in  battle  than  to  see  the  evils 
of  our  nation.  Nevertheless,  as  it  shall  be  the  will 
of  God  in  heaven,  so  be  it  done."  In  this  spirit  of 
resignation  to  the  worst  and  of  faith  for  the  best 
they  set  forth  and  fell  upon  the  main  army  and 
defeated  it  and  set  fire  to  its  camp;  and  when  a 
detachment  sent  out  to  entrap  them  came  later  and 
saw  the  flames,  its  members  were  seized  with  great 
fear  and  fled  away  into  their  own  land.  It  was  a 
great  and  almost  incredible  victory,  and  all  the  Jews 
were  ready  to  say  with  Judas,  "There  is  one  that 
redeemeth  and  delivereth  Israel." 

The  next  year  Lysias  himself  came  with  a  still 
larger  army,  which  Judas  decisively  defeated.  Then 
Judas  and  his  brethren  went  up  to  Jerusalem,  where 
the  Temple  worship  had  been  neglected  for  three 
years.  They  found  shrubs  growing  up  in  the  courts 
of  the  sanctuary  as  in  a  forest  or  on  the  mountains, 
its  gate  burned,  its  chambers  thrown  down,  and 
its  altar  profaned.  They  built  a  new  altar,  restored 
all  the  holy  vessels,  and  renewed  the  Temple  wor- 
ship. A  Feast  of  Dedication  was  celebrated  at  this 
time,  and  this  feast  was  continued,  year  after  year, 
as  long  as  the  Temple  stood.  Jesus  walked  in  the 
Temple  porch  during  the  celebration  of  the  Feast 
of  the  Dedication  in  his  day,  when  the  Jews  took 


14  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

up  stones  to  stone  him  because  they  thought  that 
he,  being  a  man,  made  himself  God. 

The  Maccabees  never  had  been  defeated  thus  far 
in  their  struggle,  and  their  victories  continued  for 
some  time  longer.  They  freed  from  their  imprison- 
ment those  of  their  countrymen  who  had  been  shut 
up  in  the  fortresses  of  Gilead  and  Galilee  and  be- 
gan to  think  of  political  independence  as  a  possi- 
bility for  their  people.  However,  the  odds  against 
them  were  too  great  at  this  time.  Lysias  advanced 
again  with  a  great  army,  and  at  Bethzur,  Judas 
suffered  his  first  defeat.  A  crisis  in  the  home  gov- 
ernment called  Lysias  away  at  this  juncture,  and 
he  made  a  treaty  with  Judas  and  granted  religious 
liberty  to  the  Jews  in  the  hope  that  they  would 
cease  to  trouble  him.  This  was  the  prize  for  which 
the  Maccabees  had  fought,  so  there  was  great  re- 
joicing throughout  the  land.  Judas  was  regarded 
as  the  savior  of  the  national  religion  and  the  pre- 
server of  the  prescribed  worship  of  the  one  true 
God. 

Antiochus  died,  and  Lysias  was  killed  by  a  politi- 
cal rival;  but  the  new  king  sent  a  new  army  into 
Judaea  at  once.  Judas  met  this  army  and  defeated 
it  twice,  but  realized  that  the  imperial  forces  were 
too  strong  for  his  little  band  to  cope  with,  so  tried 
to  make  an  alliance  with  the  new  power  of  Rome; 
but  before  Roman  help  could  reach  him,  a  new 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  15 

army,  so  superior  in  numbers  that  it  seemed  hope- 
less to  oppose  it,  entered  Judaea.  Most  of  his  men 
deserted  him,  but  Judas  made  a  brave  stand  with 
eight  hundred  faithful  ones,  who  did  their  best  but 
were  defeated.  Judas  himself  was  slain.  All  the 
people  of  Israel  bewailed  him  with  great  lamenta- 
tion and  mourned  for  him  many  days.  They  said, 
"How  is  the  mighty  man  fallen,  that  saved  the 
people  of  Israel!" 

Jonathan,  the  brother  of  Judas,  succeeded  him 
in  the  leadership  of  the  Jewish  forces  and  was  quite 
successful  both  in  diplomacy  and  battle.  When  he 
was  made  a  prisoner  and  afterward  slain,  his 
brother  Simon  took  his  place.  Simon  was  the  last 
of  the  brothers  and  he  completed  their  work  by 
gaining  for  his  people  both  religious  liberty  and 
political  independence.  For  thirty  years  they  had 
carried  on  the  war  their  father  had  begun  and  they 
had  been  successful  beyond  their  fondest  hopes. 
Their  descendants  were  not  equal  to  them;  and 
although  they  remained  the  ruling  family  in  Judaea 
almost  down  to  the  time  of  Jesus,  their  weakness 
and  their  corruption  proved  that  they  had  not  pre- 
served either  the  pious  or  the  patriotic  spirit  of  their 
fathers.  The  memory  of  the  first  Maccabees  kept 
alive  the  nationalistic  spirit  among  the  Jews  and 
their  great  hope  of  a  coming  Deliverer.  As  a 
people  they  were  intensely  patriotic  and  incurably 


i6  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

sanguine  of  their  future  greatness  and  dominance 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  When  their  Re- 
deemer had  come,  it  may  well  be  that  the  history 
of  Judas  the  Hammerer  and  the  fortunes  of  his 
family  and  their  dynasty  helped  Jesus  of  Nazareth, 
during  the  days  of  the  great  temptation,  to  conclude 
that  any  lasting  redemption  of  his  people  and  of  the 
race  was  not  to  be  found  in  militarism  and  violence 
and  force,  and  that  the  kingdom  of  God  could  come 
only  through  the  preaching  and  the  practice  of 
righteousness,  peace,  and  love. 

Questions  for  Your  Consideration 

How  far  do  you  think  that  the  church  ought  to 
be  subordinate  to  the  state  ? 

Do  you  believe  that  patriotism  and  religion  ever 
can  be  antagonistic  in  their  demands?  Can  you 
give  examples? 

What  would  you  list  as  the  virtues  of  Judas,  and 
what,  if  any,  were  his  faults? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  books  of  Maccabees. 
The  Age  of  the  Maccabees,  Streane. 
History  of  the  Jewish  People:  Maccabean  and 
Roman  Periods,  Riggs. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  17 


( 


CHAPTER  II 
JOHN  THE  BAPTIST 


The  glory  of  the  Maccabees  had  faded  away. 
Their  dynasty  had  come  to  an  end.  The  Romans 
now  ruled  the  world,  and  Herod  was  king  in  Jeru- 
salem. The  Temple  worship  still  went  on,  but  the 
Jews  were  a  subject  people.  They  were  waiting 
for  the  Messiah  promised  in  the  prophets  and  hop- 
ing that  he  would  be  a  better  Saviour  to  the  people 
of  Israel  than  even  Judas  the  Hammerer  had  been. 
Then  a  preacher  appeared  in  the  wilderness  of 
Judaea — a  man  of  strange  appearance  and  of 
strange  power.  The  report  of  his  message  spread 
through  all  the  land,  and  multitudes  went  out  from 
the  synagogues  and  the  cities  to  see  this  new  prophet 
and  to  listen  to  all  he  had  to  say.  He  became  the 
most  popular  preacher  of  the  day,  for  he  was  an 
honest  and  earnest  man  and  he  had  a  message  that 
was  well  worth  speaking — a  message  of  both  judg- 
ment and  hope. 

This  messenger  was  John.  It  had  been  prophe- 
sied of  him  at  the  time  of  his  birth  that  he  should 


i8  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

turn  many  of  the  children  of  Israel  unto  the  Lord 
their  God  and  make  ready  for  the  Lord  a  people 
prepared  for  him.  He  was  a  forerunner — a  herald 
of  a  better  day.  He  was  of  priestly  descent,  but 
he  possessed  the  spirit  and  the  power  of  the  prophet 
Elijah.  He  was  reared  in  the  solitudes  and  lived 
an  abstinent  life,  studying  the  Scriptures  and  com- 
muning with  nature  until  he  was  prepared  for  his 
public  message  and  ministry. 

For  more  than  three  centuries  the  voice  of 
prophecy  had  not  been  heard  in  the  land.  The  last 
of  the  Old-Testament  prophets  had  been  Malachi, 
and  that  name  meant  "my  messenger."  This  man 
was  a  new  Malachi,  a  new  messenger  from  God. 
The  preachers  of  the  Christian  faith  were  to  be 
called  "apostles,"  and  that  word  meant  "those  sent." 
This  man  was  a  preacher  of  the  Messianic  kingdom 
at  hand;  he  was  a  "man  sent  from  God."  He  was 
a  Malachi-apostle.  He  was  to  close  the  old  dis- 
pensation and  to  usher  in  the  new. 

John  came  to  call  the  people  to  repentance  and 
to  bear  witness  of  Jesus.  As  the  people  received 
his  message,  he  baptized  them  as  a  symbol  of  their 
readiness  to  welcome  the  Messiah  when  he  came. 
John  preached  not  to  start  a  revival,  to  create  a 
sensation,  or  to  astonish  the  people  with  his  elo- 
quence; he  came  as  a  witness,  that  he  might  bear 
witness  of  the  light.     That  was  the  whole  of  his 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  19 

work,  and  he  did  it  well.  The  revival,  the  sensa- 
tion, the  astonished  and  repentant  multitudes,  came 
in  due  order.  They  were  the  result  of  honest,  per- 
sistent, fearless  witnessing.  A  witness  is  of  value 
only  in  so  far  as  his  testimony  is  important.  John 
realized  this  to  the  full.  He  declared  that  he  was 
only  a  voice,  but  he  had  something  to  say  which  was 
worth  hearing.  He  was  of  no  consequence,  but 
his  message  was  all-important.  The  people  believed 
it,  and  multitudes  of  them  were  baptized  In  the 
Jordan,  repenting  their  sins. 

There  is  no  finer  illustration  of  unselfishness  to 
be  found  in  the  pages  of  history  than  that  furnished 
by  John  the  Baptist.  He  must  have  had  his  tempta- 
tion in  the  wilderness  as  well  as  his  Lord.  When 
the  multitudes  flocked  out  from  the  cities  to  hear 
him,  he  found  himself  the  center  of  a  great  popular 
movement.  He  seemed  to  be  sweeping  everything 
before  him.  There  were  those  among  his  enthusi- 
astic followers  who  said:  ''Nothing  like  this  has 
been  seen  or  heard  in  Israel  for  hundreds  of  years. 
This  is  a  great  prophet.  Possibly  the  greatest  of 
the  prophets  is  here."  There  were  some  who  were 
saying,  "He  is  Elijah."  There  were  some  who  were 
whispering  to  each  other,  "He  is  the  Christ."  Was 
he  never  tempted  to  claim  any  of  these  titles  ?  Did 
it  never  occur  to  him  that  he  might  use  for  his  own 
benefit  some  of  the  reputation  thus  thrust  upon 


20  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

him?  It  would  seem  that  he  must  have  been  more 
than  human  if  it  did  not.  We  have  seen  a  modern 
religious  leader  yield  to  just  such  a  temptation  and 
call  himself  "the  Second  Elijah";  but  there  is  no 
slightest  trace  in  the  history  of  even  a  momentary 
yielding  to  the  temptation  on  the  part  of  John.  Like 
the  Master  he  was  continually  conqueror.  A  depu- 
tation from  Jerusalem,  sent  by  the  Pharisees,  ques- 
tioned him  as  to  his  person  and  mission.  He  told 
them  that  he  was  not  the  Christ  and  not  Elijah  and 
not  the  prophet;  he  said  that  he  was  only  a  voice. 
But  that  voice,  while  claiming  nothing  for  itself, 
was  proclaiming  a  most  startling  bit  of  news:  '7n 
the  midst  of  you  standeth  one  whom  ye  know  not, 
,  ,  .  the  latch'*t  of  whose  shoe  I  am  not  worthy  to 
unloose" 

Jesus  was  standing  there,  and  he  heard  what 
John  had  to  say  concerning  him.  Long  afterward, 
at  Csesarea  Philippi,  did  he  recall  this  scene  and 
think  of  the  contrast  presented?  Multitudes  here; 
the  little  group  of  disciples  there.  The  priests  and 
Levites  questioning  here  or  repeating  to  John  the 
questions  raised  everywhere  by  the  people  in  those 
days;  Jesus  himself  questioning  there  concerning 
what  the  people  were  saying  and  thinking.  The 
first  question  asked  of  John  the  Baptist  here,  "Art 
thou  the  Christ?";  the  first  answer  made  to  the 
Christ  there,  "Some  say  that  thou  art  John  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  21 

Baptist.'*  The  second  opinion  of  the  public,  pre- 
sented to  each — "Thou  art  Elijah" — was  emphat- 
ically rejected  by  both;  yet  there  was  a  sense  in 
which  both  were  Elijahs.  Did  not  Jesus  say  of 
John  the  Baptist:  "All  the  prophets  and  the  law 
prophesied  until  John,  And  if  ye  are  willing  to 
receive  it,  this  is  Elijah,  that  is  to  come''?  And 
did  not  John  the  Baptist  say  of  Christ,  "I  indeed 
baptize  you  with  water;  hut  .  .  ,  he  shall  baptize 
you  .  .  .  in  fire,"  even  as  Elijah  did?  Did  not 
Christ  ascend  to  heaven,  even  as  Elijah  did?  What 
does  Elijah  mean  but  "my  God  is  Jehovah"  ?  and  did 
any  man  ever  live  who  was  a  truer  Elijah  than 
Jesus  or  one  who  could  say  in  a  fuller  sense : 
*'God  is  my  King  of  old, 
Working  salvation  in  the  midst  of  the  earth"? 
Both  series  of  questions  and  answers  led  up  to 
the  great  confession  here  of  John  the  Baptist, 
"In  the  midst  of  you  standeth  one  ,  .  .  the  latchet 
of  whose  shoe  I  am  not  worthy  to  unloose" ;  there 
of  Peter  for  the  apostles,  "Thou  art  the  Christ, 
the  Son  of  the  living  God."  Jesus  heard  the  con- 
fession in  both  instances.  He  said  to  Peter,  "Upon 
this  rock  I  will  build  my  church."  He  said  of 
John,  "Among  them  that  are  born  of  women  there 
hath  not  arisen  a  greater  than  John  the  Baptist" 
That  was  John's  reward  for  his  self-abnegation. 
He  said  that  he  was  not  Elijah  and  he  was  not  the 


22  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

prophet;  and  Jesus  said  that  he  was  greater  than 
these. 

John  maintained  his  humility  to  the  end.  When 
his  disciples  became  a  little  jealous  of  the  growing 
popularity  of  Jesus  and  came  to  him  saying,  "Rahhi, 
he  that  was  with  thee  beyond  the  Jordan,  to  whom 
thou  hast  borne  witness,  behold,  the  same  baptizeth, 
and  all  men  come  to  him,"  John  answered  and  said : 
*'He  that  hath  the  bride  is  the  bridegroom:  but  the 
friend  of  the  bridegroom,  that  standeth  and  heareth 
him,  rejoiceth  greatly  because  of  the  bridegroom's 
voice :  this  my  joy  therefore  is  made  full.  He  must 
increase,  but  I  must  decrease/'  Here  was  a  man 
in  whom  self  had  been  conquered.  No  wonder  that 
Jesus  said  that  among  the  ancients  there  was  none 
greater  than  he.  In  the  church  calendar  John  the 
Baptist's  day  is  midsummer  day — the  twenty-fourth 
of  June.  After  this  the  days  decrease  in  length. 
The  birthday  of  Jesus  is  celebrated  at  Christmas- 
time, in  midwinter.  After  Christmas  the  days  in- 
crease in  length.  John  was  the  morning  star  of  the 
new  day  in  God's  grace.  His  light  was  dimmed 
only  in  the  greater  glory  of  the  Son. 

John  called  all  men  to  repentance  and  he  included 
the  king.  The  king  feared  him  for  his  influence 
and,  because  of  his  message,  put  him  in  prison. 
John  was  an  ascetic  and  fearlessly  bore  his  witness 
against  the  folly  and  the  vice  of  his  day.     It  was 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  23 

his  fate  to  have  a  dancing  girl  bring  about  his  be- 
heading. His  disciples  laid  his  corpse  in  a  tomb. 
That  tomb  ought  to  bear  upon  it  the  eulogy  of  Jesus 
followed  by  the  words  ''This  my  joy  therefore  is 
made  full."  Judas  the  Hammerer  had  left  a  great 
memory;  John  the  Baptist  revived  and  intensified 
a  great  hope.  A  greater  Leader  than  either  of  these 
was  at  hand.  Who  and  what  would  he  be?  The 
whole  people  waited  for  the  self -revelation  of  Jesus. 

For  Your  Thought 

How  do  you  think  that  the  work  of  John  the 
Baptist  relates  itself  to  the  Old  Testament? 

How  does  it  relate  itself  to  the  work  of  Jesus? 

What  do  you  think  is  the  meaning  of  the  eulogy 
of  Jesus  upon  John? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

John  the  Baptist:  His  Life  and  Work,  Houghton. 
John  the  Baptist,  Reynolds. 
John  the  Baptist,  Feather. 
John  the  Loyal,  Robertson. 


24     GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

CHAPTER  HI 

JESUS  THE  LEADER 

Judas  the  Hammerer  had  been  a  hero  of  the 
faith.  He  had  been  a  great  leader  of  the  people. 
He  and  his  brothers  had  been  rebels  and  revolu- 
tionists. They  had  fought  for  freedom  of  worship 
and  then  for  the  independence  of  their  land.  They 
had  had  the  spirit  of  Samuel,  who  hewed  Agag 
to  pieces  before  the  Lord;  they  had  had  the  spirit 
of  Elijah,  who  slew  the  four  hundred  and  fifty 
prophets  of  Baal.  They  had  had  no  mercy  upon 
the  enemies  of  the  people  of  God.  Again  and  again 
in  the  history  we  read  that  when  they  had  taken  a 
city  they  devoted  the  people  of  that  city  to  utter 
destruction  and  burned  its  towers  with  fire  and  all 
that  were  in  them.  Again  and  again  we  read  that 
they  slew  every  male  with  the  edge  of  the  sword 
and  made  a  great  slaughter  of  them.  They  were 
military  leaders  and  heroes.  They  took  up  the 
sword  and  they  perished  with  the  sword.  They 
fought  for  liberty  or  death  and  they  attained  both 
liberty  and  death.  In  a  few  generations  their 
family  line  was  extinct,  and  the  liberties  for  which 
they   had    fought    were    lost    again.      The    hated 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  2$ 

Idumean  was  on  the  throne,  and  the  Roman  power 
was  supreme  in  the  land. 

Jesus  could  have  had  a  more  glorious  military 
career  than  Judas  the  Hammerer  ever  dreamed  of. 
He  could  have  become  a  world  conqueror.  All  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  could  have  been  his  if  he 
had  been  willing  to  gain  them  by  force.  What  good 
he  could  have  done  in  the  world  if  he  had  chosen 
such  a  career!  Had  not  Alexander  the  Great 
founded  a  world  empire  and  spread  the  Greek 
culture  wherever  his  victorious  armies  came? 
Would  it  not  be  possible  to  spread  the  Jewish  faith 
in  the  same  way  ?  The  heathen  abominations  could 
be  done  away,  the  cruelties  and  oppressions  of  the 
nations  could  be  abolished,  the  captives  could  be 
released,  the  bruised  could  be  set  at  liberty,  and  the 
abuses  of  the  poor  could  be  brought  to  an  end. 
There  would  be  no  limit  to  the  possibilities  of  good 
opened  to  Jesus  if  he  once  attained  to  the  throne 
of  the  world.  He  would  be  the  most  benevolent 
Emperor  the  mind  of  man  can  conceive.  With  the 
ideal  Ruler  the  world  might  be  made  into  the  ideal 
kingdom  of  God.  Was  it  only  a  dream  impossible 
to  realize?  Jesus  declared  it  one  of  the  real  tempta- 
tions of  the  wilderness,  and  possibly  it  was  the 
greatest  temptation  he  had  to  encounter  in  life. 

Judas  had  won  great  victories  with  only  a  hand- 
ful of  men.    God  had  been  with  him,  and  the  God 


26  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

of  heaven  could  deliver  with  a  great  multitude  or 
with  a  small  company;  for  none  that  trust  in  him 
fail  in  strength.  Nothing  would  be  impossible  to 
the  faith  of  Jesus.  He  was  the  Prince  and  Per- 
fecter  of  the  faith  that  Judas  and  all  the  ancient 
worthies  of  Israel  had  shown.  What  they  had 
accomplished  was  only  a  faint  suggestion  of  what 
he  could  accomplish  along  the  same  lines.  Had  they 
subdued  kingdoms,  waxed  mighty  in  war,  and 
turned  to  flight  armies  of  aliens?  Then  Jesus,  with 
his  faith  in  the  Father,  could  put  to  flight  all  his 
foes  and  become  a  world  Conqueror  and  establish 
himself  at  the  head  of  the  universal  empire  of  man- 
kind. The  people  were  looking  for  a  redeemer  like 
Judas,  a  temporal  monarch  who  would  lead  their 
armies  and  win  their  liberties  and  make  them  the 
masters  of  the  world.  Would  Jesus  answer  to  that 
expectation  and  be  the  Leader  they  desired?  With 
a  little  compromise  of  principle  and  a  little  pulling 
of  wires  it  could  be  done,  and  he  could  have  all  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them  for 
his  reward. 

Would  he  be  a  leader  of  that  kind?  Would  he 
win  his  kingdom  by  force?  Would  he  spread  his 
faith  by  the  aid  of  the  sword  ?  Would  he  fight  like 
Judas  and  make  a  great  slaughter  of  his  enemies 
and  so  obtain  peace  for  the  world?  At  the  begin- 
ning of  his  ministry  Jesus  faced  these  questions  and 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  27 

decided  that  the  method  of  Judas  would  not  be  his 
method.  That  method  had  failed  so  lamentably  in 
the  long  run.  No  kingdom  won  by  the  sword  had 
stood  for  any  great  length  of  time.  His  kingdom 
must  be  world-wide  and  eternal. 

John  the  Baptist  was  a  leader  too.  His  influence 
among  the  people  was  so  great  that  even  after  his 
death  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  and  the  elders 
did  not  dare  to  say  that  his  baptism  was  not  from 
heaven  lest  all  the  people  would  stone  them.  John 
expected  a  still  greater  leader  to  come  after  him 
and  prophesied  that  this  leader  would  go  through 
the  nation  with  a  winnowing  fan  in  his  hand  and 
would  separate  the  chaff  from  the  wheat  and  then 
would  burn  up  the  chaff  even  as  Judas  the  Ham- 
merer had  burned  up  the  towers  of  the  pagan  cities 
with  all  the  men  who  were  in  them.  He  said  that 
the  Coming  One,  who  was  greater  than  he,  would 
have  an  ax  in  his  hand  and  would  hew  down  all 
the  trees  that  did  not  bring  forth  good  fruit,  even 
as  Samuel  had  hewed  Agag  to  pieces  before  the 
Lord.  According  to  the  preaching  of  John  the 
Baptist  the  ministry  of  Jesus  was  to  be  one  of 
vengeance  and  wrath.  He  would  visit  quick  judg- 
ment upon  wrongdoers  and  would  make  the  times 
hot  for  all  who  did  not  choose  the  right. 

Jesus  came,  and  he  became  a  great  Leader;  but 
he  was  a  great  disappointment  to  John.     He  did 


28  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

not  set  up  a  judgment  seat,  according  to  John's 
advertisement.  He  was  not  blazing  with  denuncia- 
tion much  of  the  time.  He  was  not  burning  any- 
body in  unquenchable  fire.  His  ministry  for  the 
most  part  was  one  of  healing  and  blessing.  He 
preached  good  tidings  instead  of  instant  and  con- 
stant woe.  John  the  Baptist  could  not  understand 
it.  He  sent  from  his  prison  to  know  if  Jesus  really 
were  the  One  they  had  been  expecting,  or  whether 
they  must  look  for  another.  Jesus  sent  back  to 
John  this  message:  "I  cause  the  blind  to  receive 
their  sight  and  the  lame  to  walk  and  the  lepers  to 
be  cleansed  and  the  deaf  to  hear  and  the  dead  to 
be  raised  up,  and  I  preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor. 
I  have  decided  that  if  I  am  to  be  a  leader  among 
the  people  I  will  be  a  leader  in  helpful  and  gracious 
ministries.  Do  not  find  any  occasion  of  stumbling 
in  me  on  this  account." 

His  conception  of  his  leadership  differed  from 
that  of  John  the  Baptist.  In  that  first  sermon 
preached  at  Nazareth  he  laid  down  the  program  for 
his  whole  career.  He  found  it  in  the  words  of  the 
ancient  prophet  and  he  read  those  words  down  to 
the  statement  that  the  Spirit  had  anointed  him  to 
proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord;  and  then 
he  closed  the  book.  It  was  not  the  end  of  the  sen- 
tence, but  the  next  words  were  ''[and  to  proclaim] 
the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God."    John  the  Baptist 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  29 

would  have  read  those  words  with  relish;  Jesus 
would  not  read  them  at  all.  That  was  not  his  mis- 
sion. His  message  was  a  message  of  grace.  He 
would  rather  leave  the  sentence  unfinished  than  to 
leave  any  doubt  in  any  mind  upon  that  point. 
-^-Jesus  as  definitely  rejected  the  ideal  of  John  the 
Baptist  as  he  did  that  of  Judas  Maccabeus.  John 
had  more  zeal  than  love.  He  had  little  or  no 
patience  with  the  weak.  He  had  little  or  no  sym- 
pathy with  the  sinner.  Jesus  chose  to  be  a  loving 
Lord,  the  patient  Sufferer,  the  compassionate  Christ. 
He  made  the  right  choice.  The  verdict  of  the  world 
has  given  him  the  leadership  of  the  race.  The  great 
leaders  have  been  the  religious  leaders,  and  there 
is  no  one  of  these — Mohammed,  Zoroaster,  Buddha, 
Confucius,  or  Socrates — who  will  venture  to  dis- 
pute the  supremacy  with  him.  His  dominion  to-day 
has  no  Hmit  either  of  land  or  of  race.  World-wide 
and  eternal,  it  will  have  no  equal  on  earth. 

Napoleon  is  reported  to  have  said:  "Alexander, 
Caesar,  Charlemagne,  and  myself  founded  empires; 
but  upon  what  foundations  did  we  rest  the  creations 
of  our  genius?  Upon  force.  Jesus  alone  founded 
his  empire  upon  love,  and  at  this  hour  millions  of 
men  would  die  for  him.  ...  I  die  before  my  time, 
and  my  body  will  be  given  back  to  the  earth  to  be- 
come the  food  of  worms.  Such  is  the  fate  of  him 
who  has  been  called  the  great  Napoleon.    What  an 


30  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

abyss  between  my  deep  misery  and  the  eternal  king- 
dom of  Christ,  which  is  proclaimed,  loved,  and 
adored,  and  which  is  extending  over  the  whole 
earth!"  That  sums  it  all  up.  Jesus  is  the  great 
Leader  of  the  race  because  he  leads  by  persuasion 
and  not  by  compulsion.  He  does  not  drive  men 
from  him  by  denunciation ;  he  draws  them  to  him  by 
sympathy  and  love.  His  kingdom  of  love,  supreme 
over  the  affections  of  millions  on  earth  out  of  every 
nation  and  people  and  kindred  and  tongue,  pushes 
its  conquests  over  the  continents  and  into  the  isles 
of  the  sea ;  and  it  will  conquer  them  all  in  the  end. 

Questions  for  You  to  Answer 

What  was  the  leadership  of  Judas  Maccabeus  and 
its  result? 

What  was  its  attraction  to  Jesus  ? 

Why  did  Jesus  refuse  to  yield  to  it? 

What  was  John  the  Baptist's  expectation  concern- 
ing Jesus? 

How  was  it  disappointed? 

What  leadership  was  preferred  by  Jesus? 

What  is  the  result  of  his  choice? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 
Imago   Christi:  the  Example  of  Jesus  Christ, 
Stalker. 

The  Man  of  Nazareth,  Anderson. 
Ecce  Homo,  Seeley. 


JHE  NEW  TESTAMENT  31 


CHAPTER  IV 
JESUS  THE  TEACHER 

There  is  a  tradition  in  the  north  country  that 
a  king  once  went  among  his  people  in  disguise.  He 
saw  many  things  that  were  evil  and  such  things  as 
kings  seldom  see.  He  did  many  things  that  were 
good  and  such  things  as  kings  only  can  do.  But 
the  people  neither  suspected  the  kingly  presence  nor 
recognized  his  kingly  power.  Then,  one  day,  the 
king  spoke  to  the  people,  and  they  wondered  at  his 
gracious  words;  and  they  said  one  to  another:  "It 
is  the  king's  voice.  We  have  the  king  here  among 
us.     These  are  the  words  of  a  king." 

This  tradition  of  the  north  country  is  a  parable 
that  suggests  a  weightier  truth.  The  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords,  the  only  begotten  Son  of  God, 
dwelt  once  among  men  as  a  man.  His  deity  was 
veiled  in  his  humanity,  and  multitudes  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  moved  never  suspected  a  Presence 
divine.  "He  was  in  the  world,  and  the  world  was 
made  through  him,  and  the  world  knew  him  not/' 
He  did  such  works  as  no  other  man  did,  and  often 
appealed  to  the  witness  of  his  works  that  the  Father 


32  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

had  sent  him  and  that  the  Father  was  with  him. 
One  winter  season,  at  the  time  of  the  Feast  of  the 
Dedication,  which  Judas  the  Hammerer  had  first 
celebrated,  Jesus  made  this  appeal,  and  those  who 
heard  him  took  up  stones  to  stone  him ;  for  no  won- 
derful works  could  convince  those  hearts,  which 
were  colder  than  the  winter  wind  and  frozen  hard 
in  their  unbelief,  that  a  man  so  simply  clad  and  so 
plain  in  his  appearance,  so  evidently  poor  and 
obscure,  could  be  the  expected  King. 

Jesus  went  quietly  on  his  way,  talking  about  the 
Father  and  the  kingdom;  about  faith  and  purity  and 
love;  about  the  way,  the  truth,  and  the  life;  and 
after  a  time  there  were  those  who  began  to  realize 
that  these  were  indeed  the  words  of  a  King.  On 
a  mountainside  Jesus  sat  and  taught  his  disciples 
and  the  multitudes  from  Galilee,  Decapolis,  Jeru- 
salem, Judaea,  and  Syria  who  had  gathered  to  hear 
such  teaching  as  no  one  of  the  scribes  could  give 
them.  The  Master  unfolded  the  constitution  of  the 
kingdom  he  had  come  to  proclaim,  marked  out  the 
broad  lines  of  distinction  between  his  spiritual  and 
essential  religion  and  all  the  old  ritual  worships  and 
creeds,  squared  all  that  was  new  in  his  teaching 
with  all  that  was  good  in  the  old,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  build  slowly  and  securely  the  glorious 
edifice  of  Christianity's  ideal  and  faith. 

He  laid  for  its  foundations  the  Beatitudes  of  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  33 

poor  in  spirit  and  the  pure  in  heart,  the  mourners, 
the  merciful,  the  meek,  the  peacemakers  and  the 
persecuted,  the  hungering  and  the  thirsting  after 
righteousness;  and  he  declared  that  to  them  be- 
longed the  Kingdom,  the  Father,  and  the  faith.  As 
the  keystone  of  the  structure  he  lifted  high  the 
command,  *'Ye  therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your 
heavenly  Father  is  perfect."  The  firm  pillars  of 
support  all  around  were  prayer  and  righteousness 
and  love.  At  the  end  Jesus  likened  the  structure 
thus  reared  to  the  house  built  upon  a  rock. 

He  said  of  it :  "He  is  a  wise  man  who  will  dwell 
therein.  The  rains  may  descend,  and  the  floods 
com.e,  and  the  winds  blow  and  beat  upon  this  house, 
and  it  will  not  fall,  for  it  is  founded  upon  the  rock." 

It  was  all  very  plain  and  simple  teaching.  There 
was  no  fine  philosophy,  no  scientific  exposition,  no 
labored  rhetoric,  no  pomp  of  power;  just  one  holy 
Man  in  the  midst  of  the  multitudes  who  knew  all 
hearts  and  their  deepest  longings  and  who  knew 
where  they  could  find  satisfaction  and  peace.  He 
used  many  illustrations.  He  repeated  his  truths 
many  times.  He  was  very  direct  in  his  warning 
and  exhortation.  His  words  were  as  sunbeams  of 
hope  to  darkened  consciences  and  as  the  bread  of  life 
and  the  water  of  life  to  the  spiritually  famishing 
souls  who  listened  that  day.  His  words  went 
straight  as  arrows  to  their  marks  and  were  sharp 


34  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

as  swords  for  the  piercing  of  hearts  and  the  divid- 
ing asunder  of  soul  peace  and  secret  sin.  When 
he  had  finished,  the  people  were  astonished  and  said 
one  to  another :  "He  speaks  as  one  having  authority. 
We  have  the  King  here  among  us.  These  are  the 
words  of  a  King." 

Nicodemus  came  to  Jesus  by  night,  and  the  two 
talked  together  about  the  things  of  the  Kingdom; 
and  Jesus  said  to  Nicodemus:  "You  must  be  born 
anew.  Marvel  not  how  these  things  can  be.  Are 
you  a  master  in  Israel  and  know  you  not  that  it 
must  all  be  of  God's  power  and  God's  grace  and 
God's  love?  God  has  so  loved  the  world  that  he 
has  given  his  only  begotten  Son,  that  whosoever 
believeth  on  him  should  not  perish,  but  have  ever- 
lasting life."  As  he  listened  the  old  man  bowed  his 
head  in  reverence  before  the  young  Man's  wisdom 
and  worth.  Nicodemus  said  to  Jesus,  "Thou  art  a 
teacher  come  from  God.'* 

The  Roman  governor,  a  cultured  man  of  the 
world,  an  experienced  man  of  affairs,  sat  in  the 
judgment  hall;  and  Jesus  stood  before  him  to 
answer  for  his  life.  Pilate  examined  and  cross- 
examined  the  alleged  culprit,  but  could  find  no  guilt 
in  him.  On  the  contrary,  he  seemed  awed  by  some- 
thing extraordinary  in  this  man.  He  asked  Jesus, 
"Art  thou  then  a  king?"  Jesus  answered,  "To  this 
end  was  I  born,  and  for  this  cause  came  I  into  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  35 

world,  that  I  should  bear  witness  unto  the  truth. 
Everyone  who  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my  voice, 
and  everyone  who  is  of  the  truth  recognizes  my 
voice  and  knows  whether  or  no  I  am  the  king." 
It  was  even  so.  His  speech  betrayed  him  to  those 
who  had  ears  to  hear  and  hearts  to  understand. 
The  servant  of  the  high  priest  said  to  Peter  at  the 
time  of  his  denial,  "Thou  also  art  one  of  them ;  thy 
speech  betrayeth  thee."  In  the  same  way,  when 
many  of  the  disciples  turned  away  and  walked  no 
more  with  the  Master,  and  Jesus  asked  the  twelve 
if  they  would  go  too,  Peter  answered  him:  "To 
whom  shall  we  go  ?  Thou  hast  the  words  of  eternal 
life.  Thy  speech  betrayeth  thee.  We  have  listened 
to  thy  words  and  we  have  come  to  believe  and  to 
know  that  the  King  is  indeed  among  us,  for  thou 
art  the  holy  one  of  God." 

"Never  man  spake  like  this  man."  That  was  the 
testimony  of  the  officials  sent  to  arrest  him.  They 
had  nothing  to  do  but  to  obey  orders  and  they  had 
been  ordered  to  arrest  Jesus.  His  trial,  with  its 
sentence  or  acquittal,  would  come  later.  It  lay  in 
other  hands.  The  only  duty  of  the  officers  of  the 
law  was  to  make  the  arrest  without  question  or 
delay.  Whether  they  considered  the  accused  inno- 
cent or  guilty  did  not  come  into  consideration.  They 
were  not  the  judges;  they  were  simply  the  agents 
of  the  court.    If  they  did  not  make  the  arrest  when 


36  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

ordered  they  would  forfeit  their  position  and  them- 
selves become  culprits  in  the  eyes  of  the  authorities. 
Therefore,  the  Pharisees  and  chief  priests  who  had 
sent  their  subordinates  out  to  arrest  Jesus  had  no 
thought  but  that  they  would  soon  return  with  the 
Teacher  bound  and  helpless  in  their  hands. 

They  believed  that  this  Jesus  was  a  pestilent  fel- 
low— a  revolutionist  who  would  destroy  the  old 
order  of  things,  about  whom  the  people  were  whis- 
pering already  that  he  must  be  the  expected  King. 
His  career  must  be  ended  immediately.  They 
waited  for  what  seemed  a  very  long  time.  Jesus 
was  teaching  publicly  in  the  Temple:  why  did  not 
the  officers  bring  him  at  once?  At  last  they  ap- 
peared, but  Jesus  was  not  with  them.  "Why  have 
you  not  brought  him?"  was  the  sharp  query;  and 
the  strange  answer  given  was  "Never  man  spake 
like  this  man."  They  had  gone  to  arrest  him  and 
had  been  themselves  arrested  by  the  authority  in 
his  voice  and  the  majesty  of  his  message.  They 
had  listened  in  spellbound  admiration  and  wonder. 
They  went  back  empty-handed,  and  their  only 
excuse  for  the  failure  to  perform  that  simple  duty 
of  making  a  public  arrest  was  the  simple  statement : 
"We  could  not.    Never  man  spake  like  this  man." 

It  has  been  the  judgment  of  the  centuries.  Both 
friends  and  foes  have  said  it:  "A  great  Teacher 
has  walked  among  his  people.     Never  man  spake 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  37 

as  he  spake."  Jesus  said:  "Every  idle  word  that 
men  shall  speak,  they  shall  give  account  thereof  in 
the  day  of  judgment.  For  by  thy  words  thou  shalt 
he  justified,  and  by  thy  words  thou  shalt  be  con- 
demned." Shall  we  apply  this  statement  to  him- 
self? Then  all  the  history  of  the  church  and  all 
the  history  of  the  world  go  to  show  that  never  man 
spake  like  this  man,  for  he  had  the  words  of  eternal 
life.  He  was  a  Teacher  sent  from  God.  His  words 
are  treasured  above  those  of  any  other  teacher  of 
the  race.  In  them  is  to  be  found  the  saving  truth 
for  all  men. 

For  Additional  Study 

What  proportion  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  do 
you  think  is  preserved  in  the  New  Testament  ? 

In  what  respects  would  you  say  that  the  teaching 
of  Jesus  was  superior  to  that  of  other  religious 
leaders  ? 

Can  you  give  an  outline  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  ? 

What  are  three  or  four  of  the  distinctive  fea- 
tures in  the  teaching  of  Jesus? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Kingdom  of  God,  Bruce. 

The  Training  of  the  Twelve,  Bruce. 

The  Revelation  of  Jesus,  Gilbert. 


38  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 


CHAPTER  V 
JESUS  THE  MESSIAH 

The  word  "Messiah"  is  a  Hebrew  word,  and 
the  word  "Christ"  is  a  Greek  word.  Both  words 
mean  "the  Anointed  One."  The  Samaritan  woman 
at  Jacob's  well  said  to  Jesus :  "/  know  that  Messiah 
Cometh  (he  that  is  called  Christ) :  when  he  is  come, 
he  will  declare  unto  us  all  things/'  Then  Jesus 
said  to  her,  "/  that  speak  unto  thee  am  he/'  To 
know  what  those  titles  meant  to  each  of  them  we 
must  look  back  into  the  Old  Testament.  There  we 
shall  find  that  certain  persons  were  anointed  by 
way  of  preparation  for  special  services. 

Saul,  the  son  of  Kish,  searched  unsuccessfully 
for  his  father's  asses  that  had  strayed.  His  servant 
advised  him  to  counsel  with  Samuel  the  seer. 
Samuel  had  been  forewarned  of  his  coming  and  of 
the  Lord's  will  concerning  him.  He  met  Saul 
cordially,  and  they  feasted  together.  Then,  before 
parting,  Samuel  took  a  vial  of  oil,  poured  it  upon 
Saul's  head,  kissed  him,  and  said,  "Is  it  not  because 
the  Lord  hath  anointed  thee  to  be  captain  over  his 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  39 

inheritance  ?"  For  a  time  Saul  was  a  king  by  divine 
right;  but  then  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  departed 
from  him,  and  an  evil  spirit  troubled  him.  Then 
Samuel  took  a  horn  of  oil  and  anointed  David  in 
the  presence  of  his  father  and  his  elder  brethren, 
and  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  came  upon  David  from 
that  day.  David's  son  Solomon  was  anointed  by 
Zadok  the  priest  and  Nathan  the  prophet;  and 
they  blew  a  trumpet,  and  all  the  people  shouted, 
"Long  live  king  Solomon !"  Thereafter  the  Jewish 
kings  always  were  inaugurated  with  this  simple 
ceremony  of  anointing  with  the  holy  oil.  After 
this  ceremony  they  were  the  Lord's  anointed  and 
under  the  Lord's  protection,  and  against  them  no 
man  was  permitted  to  put  forth  his  hand. 

At  Horeb,  the  mount  of  God,  Elijah  listened  to 
the  still  small  voice,  and  the  Lord  said  to  him, 
"Anoint  Hazael  to  be  king  over  Syria,  and  Jehu 
to  be  king  over  Israel,  and  Elisha  to  be  prophet 
in  thy  room."  Kings  were  anointed,  and  prophets 
were  anointed  too.  Consecrated  hands  poured  the 
holy  oil  upon  some  prophet's  head,  and  the  fullness 
of  the  Spirit  rested  upon  him.  The  secret  counsels 
of  the  Most  High  were  intrusted  to  him.  He  was 
inspired  and  prophesied.  His  voice  of  benediction 
and  of  malediction  was  the  authoritative  voice  of 
his  God.  He  was  a  seer  and  a  saint.  He  was  one 
of  the  Lord's  anointed  concerning  whom  he  com- 


:40  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

manded,  "Touch  not  mine  anointed  ones,  and  do 
my  prophets  no  harm." 

In  that  other  typical  office  of  the  priesthood  there 
was  the  anointed  priest.  All  the  priests  were 
anointed  to  their  holy  office,  but  the  chief  priest 
stood  at  their  head  as  the  anointed  one.  He  was 
given  the  peculiar  dress  of  the  breastplate  and 
the  miter,  the  ephod  and  its  robe  made  of  gold, 
blue,  red,  crimson,  and  fine  white  linen.  He  wore 
the  twelve  precious  stones  of  the  Urim  and  Thum- 
mim.  His  ephod  was  clasped  at  the  shoulders  with 
two  large  onyx  stones,  each  engraved  with  the 
names  of  six  tribes  of  Israel.  He  alone  was 
privileged  to  enter  the  holy  of  holies  in  the  inner 
temple.  There  once  a  year,  on  the  great  day  of 
atonement,  he  sprinkled  the  blood  of  the  sin  offering 
upon  the  mercy  seat  and,  in  the  revealed  presence 
of  the  Lord  Most  High,  he  put  the  incense  upon 
the  fire  before  the  altar  until  its  rising  cloud  shielded 
him  from  the  dazzling  glory  that  covered  the 
covenant  ark.  He  alone  ever  entered  in  to  that 
within  the  veil.    He  was  the  Lord's  anointed  priest. 

The  Jews  had  anointed  priests  and  prophets  and 
kings ;  and  the  whole  nation  knew  that  the  anointing 
of  the  kings  and  of  the  high  priest  and  of  the  chosen 
prophets  was  only  the  foreshadowing  of  the  higher 
anointing  to  be  given  to  that  consummate  flower  of 
their  race — the  Messiah,  the  Christ,  the  Anointed 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  4t 

One — toward  whose  coming  they  had  looked,  for 
whose  coming  they  had  longed  for  many  centuries. 
The  Messiah  was  to  be  a  King — "great  David's 
greater  Son" — whose  glory  would  far  excel  that 
of  Solomon,  and  of  whose  dominion  there  would 
be  no  end.  The  Messiah  was  to  be  a  Priest,  who 
was  to  abide  a  Priest  continuously — not  after  the 
law  of  a  carnal  commandment  but  after  the  power 
of  an  endless  hfe — made  a  High  Priest  forever 
after  the  order  of  Melchizedek,  who  was  both  king 
and  priest  and  greater  even  than  Father  Abraham. 
The  Messiah  was  to  be  the  Prophet  of  the  Highest, 
come  from  far — one  with  the  Father,  whose  word 
would  be  true  and  steadfast,  since  it  was  the  word 
of  Him  who  sent  him.  Prophet,  Priest,  and  King, 
the  triple  anointing  would  be  upon  him;  and  he 
would  know  how  to  rule,  he  would  know  the  secrets 
of  the  holy  place,  he  would  know  with  prophetic 
certainty  all  things. 

Jesus  told  the  woman  at  the  well  that  he  was 
the  Messiah,  but  it  was  difficult  for  her  to  believe 
it.  He  was  not  the  Messiah  of  the  popular  expecta- 
tion. That  Messiah  was  to  be  a  monarch  and 
would  deliver  his  people  from  foreign  tyranny,  even 
as  Judas  and  the  Maccabees  had  done ;  this  Messiah 
was  a  weary,  thirsty  traveler,  appearing  like  any 
ordinary  man.  If  he  was  an  anointed  King,  he 
must  be  in  disguise.    Some  of  the  people  were  dis- 


42  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

posed  to  think  that  was  true.  When  Jesus  asked 
the  disciples  what  the  people  were  saying  about  him, 
they  told  him  that  some  thought  he  was  Elijah,  and 
some  thought  he  was  Jeremiah,  and  some  thought 
he  was  some  one  of  the  other  prophets  or  even  the 
great  Prophet  promised  in  the  Messianic  day.  When 
Jesus  fed  the  multitudes  in  the  wilderness,  they  were 
so  impressed  with  the  wonder  of  it  that  they  said, 
"Of  a  truth  this  is  the  Prophet  that  cometh  into  the 
world,"  and  they  were  about  to  take  him  by  force 
and  make  him  King  when  Jesus  withdrew  into  the 
mountain  and  thus  defeated  their  design. 

They  were  ready  to  recognize  him  as  their  Mes- 
siah, but  he  kept  disappointing  them  all  the  time. 
In  his  discourses  he  claimed  a  great  deal,  but  he  did 
not  claim  enough.  If  he  had  claimed  to  be  the 
promised  King  and  if  he  had  set  about  seeking  glory 
from  men,  they  would  have  flocked  to  his  standard. 
If  he  had  raised  the  red  flag  of  revolution  and  had 
made  a  bid  for  popularity  by  any  demonstration 
against  the  Roman  power,  they  would  have  rallied 
to  him.  He  said  that  he  was  the  Messiah,  but  he 
did  not  do  what  they  expected  the  Messiah  to  do: 
he  did  not  make  his  glory  manifest  to  all  men  and 
he  refused  to  be  crowned  the  nation^s  King.  The 
Messiah  would  be  no  Sabbath-breaker.  The  Mes- 
siah never  would  say  that  he  could  do  nothing  of 
himself.     The  Messiah  would  seek  for  glory,  and 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  43 

he  would  have  glory.  He  would  be  a  glorious 
Messiah,  not  a  plain  and  ordinary  man  like  this 
Jesus  of  Nazareth.  So  most  of  the  people  reasoned ; 
and  it  did  seem  reasonable  that  the  Anointed  One 
should  be  something  more  than  a  poor  peasant,  a 
leader  only  along  spiritual  lines,  and  a  teacher  only 
of  spiritual  truths. 

They  rejected  him  at  last  and  crucified  him  as  a 
criminal.  Then  God  raised  him  from  the  dead  and 
made  him  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords  forever. 
He  himself  had  told  his  townspeople  at  Nazareth 
that  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  was  upon  him,  anointing 
him  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor.  He  was  the 
anointed  Prophet  of  the  Highest  through  all  his 
ministry,  as  he  will  be  for  all  future  time.  Peter 
preached  to  the  household  of  Cornelius  that  God 
had  anointed  Jesus  of  Nazareth  with  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  with  power,  and  that  he  went  about 
doing  good  and  healing  all  who  were  oppressed  of 
the  devil,  for  God  was  with  him.  What  he  began 
to  do  there  in  Palestine  he  continues  to  do  in  and 
through  his  church.  He  is  anointed  with  kingly 
power,  and  this  power  is  at  the  service  of  his  people 
for  evermore.  A  large  part  of  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  was  written  to  show  that  Jesus  is  the 
great  High  Priest,  who  has  passed  through  the 
heavens  and  entered  once  for  all  into  the  holy  place, 
having  obtained  eternal  redemption  and,  therefore. 


44  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

having  sat  down  on  the  right  hand  of  the  throne  of 
the  Majesty  on  high.  He  is  the  one  great  Prophet, 
Priest,  and  King  of  the  Christian  world.  He  is 
the  Messiah,  the  Christ,  the  Anointed  One,  through 
whom  the  world  has  received  and  will  receive  its 
spiritual  truth,  its  spiritual  power,  and  its  eternal 
salvation.  That  was  the  gospel  upon  which  the 
Christian  Church  was  founded.  "Know  assuredly 
that  God  hath  made  the  crucified  Jesus  both  Lord 
and  Christ."  Those  who  accept  the  crucified  and 
exalted  Christ  as  their  Saviour  take  his  name  upon 
them  and  are  called  Christians.  They  are  the 
anointed  followers  of  the  Anointed  One. 

Questions  to  Think  About 

How  were  the  typical  anointings  in  the  Old 
Testament  fulfilled  in  Jesus  ? 

Do  you  think  that  anointings  or  other  ceremonies 
are  of  any  inherent  value? 

How  far  do  you  believe  that  Christians  may 
realize  the  results  of  the  triple  anointings  now  ? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Life  and  Times  of  Jesus,  the  Messiah,  Eder- 
sheim. 

The  Life  of  Christ,  Stalker. 
The  Jesus  of  History,  Glover. 
The  Days  of  His  Flesh,  Smith. 
The  Life  of  Christ,  Dawson. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  45 


CHAPTER  VI 

SIMON  PETER,  THE  LEADER  OF  THE 
APOSTLES 

Peter  was  a  very  likable  man.  Everybody  liked 
him.  Jesus,  the  other  apostles,  the  members  of  the 
early  church,  all  liked  him;  and  we  like  him  too, 
because  he  is  so  much  like  us.  Peter  had  not  Paul's 
head  nor  John's  heart  nor  James's  saintliness  and 
stability;  but  I  venture  to  say  that  he  was  at  once 
the  most  heady  and  hearty  and  human  of  all  the 
apostles.  He  gave  so  much  clearer  evidence  of  all 
the  frailties  which  flesh  and  blood  are  heir  to;  he 
was  a  better  example  of  growth  in  grace  than  any 
or  all  of  his  associates.  He  was  so  human,  so  like 
tlie  rest  of  us  in  everything,  that  his  history  comes 
nearer  our  own;  and  the  glimpses  we  have  of  his 
spiritual  experience  seem  like  glimpses  into  the 
depths  of  our  own  hearts.  His  biography  more 
easily  than  that  of  the  other  apostles  can  be  rewritten 
as  the  Autobiography  of  the  Common  Man.  It  was 
said  long  ago,  "In  Peter  is  more  of  human  nature 
than  in  any  other  of  the  apostles." 

He  was  a  heady,  hasty  man.  Headlong  and 
headstrong,  he  went  about  the  task  set  before  him 


46  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

without  waiting  to  plan  out  methods  of  procedure 
and  without  any  calculation  of  consequences.  If 
Peter  had  lived  in  these  days  he  would  have  had 
an  automobile  as  he  went  here  and  there  and  every- 
where about  his  apostolic  business,  simply  because 
he  would  have  found  it  the  most  rapid  means  of 
locomotion  in  making  a  large  number  of  short  trips ; 
and  even  after  he  had  learned  to  manage  the  thing 
like  a  professional  he  would  have  been  a  public 
menace  every  day  of  his  life  simply  because  of  his 
failure  to  look  ahead  a  little  and  his  proneness  to 
rush  on  regardless  of  any  obstacle  in  his  way.  No 
man  ever  had  walked  on  the  water  before,  but  Peter 
jumped  over  the  side  of  the  boat  to  do  it  without 
stopping  to  think  that  it  was  impossible.  The  other 
disciples  asked  whether  they  should  defend  Jesus; 
and  while  they  were  asking,  Peter  had  drawn  his 
sword  and  cut  off  the  right  ear  of  the  servant  of 
the  high  priest.  Peter  was  the  sort  of  man  who 
would  set  the  whole  world  on  fire  while  some  other 
people  were  getting  ready  to  light  a  match. 

Peter  was  an  impulsive,  impetuous  man.  He  was 
the  creature  of  the  moment;  he  acted  without  reflec- 
tion. Did  Jesus  ask,  "Who  say  ye  that  I  am?" 
the  others  were  ready  to  think  about  it  a  while  and 
then  more  carefully  and  judiciously  to  formulate 
a  creed;  but  all  of  Peter's  warm  affection  and 
admiration  for  his  Lord  surged  forth  like  an  out- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  47 

burst  of  the  Old  Faithful  Geyser  in  Yellowstone 
Park.  He  burst  out  in  the  first  moment,  **Thou 
art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God"  It  was 
the  great  confession  and  it  told  the  truth  and  won 
the  warmest  commendation  of  the  Master.  A  few 
moments  later  Jesus  was  foretelling  his  sufferings 
and  his  crucifixion  for  the  first  time ;  and  Peter,  with 
the  same  impulsiveness,  burst  out  into  hot  remon- 
strance: *'Let  nothing  of  this  sort  ever  happen  to 
thee,  Lord!  This  never  shall  be!"  He  knew  that 
the  Master  knew  more  and  better  than  he;  but  he 
acted  on  the  impulse  of  the  moment  and  without 
thinking,  as  we  so  often  do.  He  got  his  just  deserts 
in  the  great  rebuke:  ''Get  thee  behind  me,  Satan: 
thou  art  a  stumbling-block  unto  me :  for  thou  mindest 
not  the  things  of  God,  but  the  things  of  men." 

Peter  might  be  all  right  one  moment  and  all 
wrong  the  next  moment.  His  nature  was  some- 
thing like  that  Sea  of  Galilee  upon  which  he  had 
spent  his  life  as  a  fisherman — peaceful  and  placid 
in  one  hour  and  lashed  into  a  sudden  fury  of 
tempest  in  another  hour.  You  never  could  tell  what 
was  coming  next  with  Peter.  There  was  nothing 
tame  or  commonplace  about  him.  He  was  as  full 
of  contradictions  and  inconsistencies  as  any  of  us. 
He  always  seemed  to  be  in  motion,  like  a  pendulum, 
reacting  from  one  extreme  to  another. 

Jesus  rebuked   Peter  more   than   once,   but  he 


48  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

always  liked  him.  Paul  rebuked  Peter  to  his  very 
face,  yet  he  had  a  sincere  affection  for  the  man. 
When  Peter  repented,  Jesus  forgave  him,  and  Paul 
forgave  him,  and  everybody  else  forgave  him. 
Luther  once  said,  "If  I  could  paint  a  portrait  of 
Peter,  I  would  paint  upon  every  hair  of  his  head: 
*I  believe  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins.* "  Why  was 
it  that  everybody  could  forgive  Peter  so  readily? 
Because  they  realized  that  his  faults  were  not 
radically  faults  at  heart.  He  might  seem  to  be  like 
Reuben — unstable  as  water — ,  but  that  was  only  on 
the  surface  of  his  character.  Down  deep  in  his 
nature  there  was  the  abiding  loyalty  and  right  pur- 
pose which  endeared  him  to  all.  No  one  ever  ques- 
tioned his  love  for  Jesus.  It  was  his  love  and  his 
loyalty  that  prompted  his  most  foolish  conduct  as 
well  as  his  most  noble  behavior.  Love  prompted 
the  great  confession  and  love  prompted  the  speech 
that  brought  the  great  rebuke. 

At  the  bottom  of  his  character  there  was  the  bed- 
rock of  an  unflinching  faith  in  the  Master  and  an 
unfailing  loyalty  to  him.  That  was  the  only  founda- 
tion upon  which  the  Christian  Church  could  be 
built.  Peter  was  the  rock  apostle  in  that  church. 
At  Pentecost,  Peter  was  the  spokesman,  and  under 
the  hot  flood  of  his  eloquence  three  thousand  souls 
were  swept  into  the  church  in  one  day.  Peter 
opened  the  door  of  the  Christian  Church  to  Cor- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  49 

nelius  and  other  Gentiles.  He  was  the  leader  in 
the  beginning.  That  beginning  work  might  not 
have  been  done  as  well  by  a  rabbi  or  a  seer  or  a 
philosopher  or  a  theologian;  but  Peter  was  so  hearty 
and  so  human  that  he  won  sympathy  both  for  him- 
self and  for  his  Master  wherever  he  went.  The 
church  was  well  founded.  Jesus  made  no  mistake 
in  making  him  the  rock  upon  which  the  church 
should  be  built. 

Peter  was  a  growing  man.  He  improved  with 
old  age.  His  sanguine  temperament  cooled  down 
a  little  through  the  years.  His  ardor  and  devotion 
remained,  but  they  were  not  so  liable  to  hasty  and 
ill-considered  manifestations.  Peter  grew  in  grace 
as  long  as  he  lived.  The  horizon  widened  before 
him  until  he  could  see  as  far  as  the  apostle  Paul. 
There  is  no  more  rounded  or  stronger  character  in 
the  early  church  than  the  apostle  Peter,  of  whom 
we  get  glimpses  in  his  Epistle  and  in  the  later  church 
tradition.  He  is  the  acknowledged  leader  among 
his  brethren,  but  never  arrogating  any  undue  au- 
thority unto  himself.  He  is  courteous  and  courage- 
ous, humble  and  brave,  obedient  to  God  rather  than 
to  hostile  men,  so  changed  for  the  better  that  his 
very  presence  was  a  constant  recommendation  of 
the  faith  he  professed.  The  richness  of  his  Chris- 
tian character  was  a  proof  of  what  Christianity 
could  do  for  the  weakest  and  poorest  material. 


50  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

Peter  was  a  saint  in  his  later  years — a  saint  with 
some  faults  and  a  saint  liable  to  err  on  some  occa- 
sions, but,  after  all,  a  saint  worthy  to  stand  at  the 
head  of  the  forming  church  as  a  supreme  example 
of  the  transforming  power  it  proclaimed  to  all  men. 
A  character  like  that  of  Peter  would  convict  and 
convince  and  attract  the  average  man  even  more 
than  the  character  of  John  and  Paul :  his  enthusiasm 
was  so  contagious,  his  transformation  was  so  mar- 
velous, and  his  needs  and  abilities  and  achievements 
were  so  patently  within  the  reach  of  all.  He  was 
a  founder  and  a  leader  worthy  of  the  Master's 
choice.  p^j.  F^j^thej.  Thought 

Which  would  you  prefer  in  a  character — enthu- 
siasm or  caution  ? 

Which  do  you  think  are  better — impulses  or  re- 
flections ? 

Who  do  you  think  would  make  the  more  mis- 
takes— a  Hamlet  or  a  Peter? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

HorcB  Petrince:  Studies  in  the  Life  of  St.  Peter, 
Howson. 

Simon  Peter:  His  Early  Life,  Robinson. 

Simon  Peter:  His  Later  Life  and  Labors,  Robin- 
son. 

The  Apostle  Peter,  Griffith-Thomas. 

The  Making  of  Simon  Peter,  Southouse. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  51 


CHAPTER  Vn 
PAUL  THE  MISSIONARY 

Paul  believed  that  all  the  circumstances  of  his 
birth  and  early  training  had  helped  to  prepare  him 
for  his  work  as  a  missionary  among  the  Gentiles. 
To  see  that  clearly  we  need  only  review  the  facts 
in  the  case.  In  the  first  place,  Paul  was  born  in 
a  Jewish  family  and  reared  in  the  Jewish  faith. 
This  gave  him  ready  access  to  the  synagogues  in 
every  city  he  visited  and  a  hearing  among  his  own 
countrymen,  to  whom  he  always  preached  first  and 
by  preference.  In  the  second  place,  Paul's  father 
was  a  Roman  citizen,  and  that  meant  that  Paul 
himself  was  born  into  Roman  citizenship,  and  all 
his  life  long  he  claimed  and  enjoyed  all  the  privi- 
leges of  that  right.  In  the  third  place,  Paul  was 
born  in  Tarsus  in  Asia  Minor,  and  that  city  was  a 
Greek  city.  In  that  way  the  young  lad  became 
familiar  with  Greek  customs  and  culture  and  was 
prepared  to  deal  with  the  Greek-speaking  peoples. 

According  to  the  custom  among  the  Jews  of 
that  day  every  Jewish  boy  was  taught  a  trade; 


52  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

and  Paul  was  trained  as  a  tentmaker.  He  found 
his  knowledge  of  this  trade  very  useful  to  him  in 
his  later  ministry,  when  it  was  necessary  to  support 
himself  by  day  labor  in  order  that  he  might  have 
leisure  to  preach  at  night.  In  the  fifth  place,  Paul's 
parents  sent  him  to  Jerusalem,  where  he  entered 
the  school  of  Gamaliel  for  his  finishing  education. 
Gamaliel  was  a  good  man,  more  tolerant  than  most 
of  the  Jewish  masters;  and  in  his  school  Paul  be- 
came familiar  with  the  Scriptures  and  their  current 
interpretation.  He  advanced  beyond  many  of  his 
own  age  in  knowledge  and  in  zeal  and  became  the 
trusted  servant  of  the  Sanhedrin  in  laying  waste 
the  Christian  churches  and  driving  the  Christian 
faith  out  of  existence. 

He  was  on  his  way  to  Damascus  on  this  mission 
of  persecution  and  destruction  when  he  had  a  most 
extraordinary  experience.  The  risen  Jesus  ap- 
peared to  him,  convinced  him  of  his  identity  and 
majesty,  and  then,  when  Paul  had  offered  his 
allegiance,  commissioned  him  to  do  the  work  the 
Jewish  nation  had  refused  to  do  in  witnessing  to 
the  Messiahship  of  Jesus  and  in  turning  the  Gentiles 
from  darkness  to  light  and  from  the  power  of  Satan 
unto  God.  One  man  was  set  in  a  nation's  stead! 
One  man  was  asked  to  do  a  nation's  work!  Paul 
was  chosen  to  be  a  world  missionary  and  in  his 
after  life  he  proved  by  his  unparalleled  zeal  and 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  53 

success  that  he  was  worthy  to  receive  such  a  world 
commission. 

Paul  took  time  to  prepare  for  his  missionary 
career.  His  Jewish  birth,  his  Roman  citizenship 
and  his  Greek  environment,  his  trade  and  his  school- 
ing, his  conversion  and  his  commission,  were  all  of 
them  helps  and  preparations  for  his  work;  but  he 
did  not  feel  ready  for  that  work  until  he  had  gone 
down  into  Arabia  and  there,  through  possibly  three 
years,  had  studied  the  Scriptures  and,  with  their 
aid  and  with  the  aid  of  his  experience,  had  formu- 
lated his  theology.  He  thought  the  thing  through. 
He  knew  what  he  had  to  preach  before  he  began 
his  Christian  ministry.  Then,  in  Syria  and  Cilicia, 
for  ten  years  or  more,  he  made  practical  experiment 
of  methods  and  truths  and  laid  the  foundations  for 
the  successes  of  his  later  years.  After  three  years 
of  theological  study  and  ten  years  of  apprentice- 
ship in  missionary  labor  he  was  prepared  to  enter 
upon  more  responsible  work. 

He  was  called  to  Antioch  to  assist  in  the  affairs 
of  the  church  there;  and  from  Antioch,  Barnabas 
and  he  were  sent  out  on  what  is  called  the  first  mis- 
sionary journey.  Their  first  work  was  in  Cyprus. 
From  this  island  they  crossed  to  Perga,  in  Pam- 
phylia,  and  then  went  on  to  Antioch  in  Pisidia,  and 
then  to  Iconium,  Lystra,  and  Derbe.  They  returned 
by  the  way  they  came.     They  had  traveled  about 


54  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

fourteen  hundred  miles  and,  in  the  three  years,  had 
estabHshed  Christian  churches  in  four  cities,  at 
least,  and  probably  in  many  more. 

From  Antioch,  Paul  and  Silas  undertook  a  second 
missionary  journey  together.  They  visited  the 
churches  of  Syria  and  Cilicia  and  then  traveled 
westward  to  Troas,  on  the  seacoast.  There  Paul 
had  a  vision  that  led  the  missionaries  to  conclude 
that  they  ought  to  enter  the  continent  of  Europe. 
The  first  European  church  was  founded  in  Philippi 
in  Macedonia;  the  next,  in  Thessalonica.  Then 
Berea  and  Athens  and  Corinth  were  visited  in  suc- 
cession. In  Corinth  the  missionaries  made  a  con- 
siderable stay  and  founded  a  large  and  prosperous 
Christian  community.  After  an  absence  of  two 
years  and  a  half  they  returned  to  Antioch,  having 
traveled  possibly  some  twenty-five  hundred  miles 
and  having  made  a  good  beginning  in  the  evangeli- 
zation of  Europe. 

The  third  missionary  journey  included  a  visit  to 
the  churches  of  Galatia  and  Phrygia  and  then  a 
stay  of  two  years  and  more  in  Ephesus,  followed 
by  a  rapid  trip  through  Macedonia  and  Greece,  and 
then  a  homeward  journey  through  Troas,  Miletus, 
Tyre,  and  Caesarea  to  Jerusalem.  There  Paul  was 
arrested,  and  his  active  missionary  career  came  to 
an  end.  He  was  a  missionary  as  long  as  he  lived, 
but  he  was  not  a  free  man  again  until  after  his  re- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  55 

lease  from  the  imprisonment  in  Rome.  He  had 
planned  missionary  work  in  Spain,  but  we  are  not 
sure  that  he  ever  was  able  to  reach  that  goal. 

Paul  labored  more  abundantly  than  any  of  the 
other  apostles.  Peter  began  the  good  work,  but 
Paul  carried  it  far  beyond  any  possibilities  Peter 
could  have  attained.  Best  prepared  by  all  his  early 
training  and  advantage  for  a  world  mission,  he 
was  the  chosen  vessel  of  the  Lord  to  inaugurate  the 
campaign  for  the  world's  evangelization.  His  conse- 
cration was  complete;  his  courage  never  failed. 
There  were  many  dangers  to  face  on  the  land  and 
on  the  sea.  There  were  suffering  and  sacrifice  of 
every  sort.  There  were  incredible  toils  and  con- 
tinual hardships.  Through  them  all  Paul  approved 
himself  as  a  good  soldier  of  Jesus  Christ.  His 
patience  and  perseverance  were  unsurpassed;  his 
devotion  and  consecration  were  unparalleled.  His 
one  aim  was  the  conversion  of  men  to  the  faith  and 
practice  of  the  Christian  life.  He  was  wilHng  to 
give  all  his  time  and  strength  to  that  end.  With 
truth  could  he  say: 

"Then  with  a  rush  the  intolerable  craving 

Shivers  throughout  me  like  a  trumpet-call — 
Oh,  to  save  these !  to  perish  for  their  saving, 

Die  for  their  life,  be  offered  for  them  all!" 
Paul  was  the  world's  greatest  missionary,  as  he  was 
one  of  the  world's  greatest  intellects  and  one  of  the 
world's  greatest   saints.     Jesus  had   confined   his 


56  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

ministry  to  the  province  of  Palestine  and  to  the 
lost  sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel.  Peter  had  neither 
the  learning  nor  the  adaptability  necessary  for  a 
campaign  among  the  Gentiles:  he  was  the  apostle 
to  the  circumcision  and  limited  his  activities  to  his 
own  countrymen.  Paul  was  prepared  to  face  the 
philosophers  at  Athens  and  the  politicians  at  Rome. 
He  could  be  all  things  to  all  men  and  by  natural 
equipment  and  acquired  education  was  ready  to 
carry  the  gospel  message  to  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
In  his  missionary  career  Christianity  was  borne  out 
of  Palestine  into  the  wide  world  and  established  as 
a  faith  no  longer  local  but  aspiring  to  the  conquest 
of  all  men  for  the  service  of  its  Master  and  Lord. 

Consider  the  Questions 

Has  God  a  purpose  and  plan  for  each  life?  Has 
he  for  your  life?  Can  you  give  any  proof  or  illus- 
tration ? 

Have  modern  missionaries  traveled  or  suffered 
more  than  Paul?     Can  you  name  any  who  have? 

Why  is  Paul  called  the  greatest  of  the  mission- 
aries ? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

Paul  the  Missionary,  Taylor. 
St.    Paul    the    Traveler    and    Roman    Citizen, 
Ramsay. 

Studies  of  the  Man  Paul,  Speer. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  $7 

CHAPTER  Vni 
PAUL  THE  PASTOR 

The  Epistles  addressed  to  Timothy  and  to  Titus 
have  been  called  the  pastoral  Epistles,  because  so 
large  a  portion  of  their  contents  have  to  do  with 
pastoral  duties  and  responsibilities.  Some  have 
thought  that  the  two  Epistles  written  to  the  Corin- 
thians deserve  this  title  even  more,  because  the 
deep-seated  principles  governing  pastoral  relations 
and  service  and  authority  are  set  forth  here  with 
such  clearness  and  fullness.  Almost  any  page  or 
any  chapter  in  the  Pauline  Epistles  would  furnish 
valuable  suggestions  concerning  Paul  the  pastor; 
and  much  information  on  the  subject  can  be  gleaned 
from  the  narratives  in  the  book  of  Acts.  For  the 
purpose  of  our  study  the  picture  given  of  the 
apostle  in  the  beginning  of  the  second  chapter  of 
the  First  Epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  will  be  suffi- 
cient. This  was  the  first  of  the  PauHne  Epistles  to 
be  written,  but  the  characteristics  of  Paul's  pastoral 
activity  given  here  were  those  of  the  whole  of  his 
missionary  ministry.    What  does  he  say  about  it? 

He  declares  that  opposition  and  shameful  treat- 
ment and  persecution  and  suffering  never  daunted 


58  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

him,  but  rather  increased  his  boldness  in  preaching 
the  gospel.  Paul  was  no  coward.  He  had  the 
courage  of  his  convictions.  Antagonism  bred 
heroism  in  him.  Unflinchingly  faithful  to  the  cause 
of  the  Christ,  he  was  ready  to  do  and  to  die  in 
behalf  of  the  truth.  The  message  given  him  through 
Ananias  at  the  time  of  his  conversion  was :  "I  will 
show  him  how  many  things  he  must  suffer  for  my 
name's  sake"  Paul  foresaw  the  suffering  and  the 
sacrifice  of  his  career  and  deliberately  committed 
himself  to  it.  Thereafter  if  he  was  treated  shame- 
fully in  one  city  and  driven  out  from  it  into  another 
he  preached  with  increased  boldness  at  the  next 
opportunity. 

Paul  claimed  and  believed  that  he  preached  the 
truth,  the  whole  truth,  and  nothing  but  the  truth. 
His  freedom  of  speech  in  the  delivery  of  his  mes- 
sage rested  upon  the  full  assurance  of  his  faith. 
He  had  no  misgivings  as  to  the  importance  of  his 
gospel;  he  had  no  secret  doubts  concerning  it  to 
conceal.  To  his  mind  there  was  no  error  in  the 
substance  of  his  preaching:  it  was  essential  to  the 
world's  salvation  and  was  the  highest  truth  ever 
offered  to  the  race.  Paul  says  that  he  preached  a 
gospel  of  purity.  There  was  no  admixture  of  un- 
cleanness  in  it,  such  as  was  characteristic  of  the 
heathen  religions  with  which  it  came  into  contact 
and  contrast;  the  Christian  faith  demanded  purity 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  59 

in  speech  and  action  and  motive.  Paul  believed 
that  a  Christian  man  ought  to  be  clean  in  every- 
thing. He  practiced  what  he  preached,  allowing 
no  place  for  error  or  uncleanness  or  guile,  in  his 
conduct  or  his  discourses.  Open  and  aboveboard 
in  his  dealings  with  everyone,  he  was  honest  and 
direct  in  his  appeals.  Paul  never  deceived  anybody. 
He  never  tried  to  catch  them  with  guile  but  only 
with  the  attractive  power  of  the  straight  and  unadul- 
terated truth. 

Paul  made  no  attempt  to  curry  favor  with  men 
by  compromising  with  the  facts  of  the  case.  He 
never  flattered  them  into  thinking  that  they  were 
not  sinners  or  that  they  were  good  enough  to  get 
along  without  salvation.  He  was  no  man-pleaser; 
he  sought  for  the  approval  of  God  and  was  satisfied 
when  he  was  assured  that  the  God  who  proves  the 
hearts  of  men  was  pleased  with  him.  Nor  was  Paul 
a  self-seeker.  He  neither  asked  for  glory  nor  for 
money  from  men.  Although  he  might  have  claimed 
authority  as  an  apostle  of  Christ  he  always  was 
among  men  as  one  who  serves.  He  made  of  his 
office  not  a  dignity  but  an  opportunity.  God  was 
his  witness  that  there  was  no  covetousness,  either 
of  money  or  of  reputation,  in  his  ministry.  He 
sought  nothing  but  the  good  of  those  among  whom 
he  labored  and  desired  above  all  things  thayJEkey 
might  be  saved. 


6o  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

To  that  end  Paul  was  gentle  and  sympathetic  with 
all.  Like  a  nurse  he  ministered  to  all  their  needs; 
like  a  mother  he  cherished  his  converts  and  lavished 
his  affection  upon  them  and  was  ready  to  sacrifice 
time  and  strength  and  life  itself  in  their  behalf. 
They  were  dear  to  him,  and  it  was  not  simply  a 
duty  but  also  a  delight  to  minister  to  them.  Paul 
worked  for  them  day  and  night.  His  ministry  was 
filled  with  labor  and  travail.  No  one  was  permitted 
to  suffer  because  of  his  indifference  and  neglect. 
His  physical  and  mental  powers  were  spent  in  the 
full  proof  of  his  devotion.  He  knew  what  utter 
exhaustion  meant  in  his  pastoral  labors,  travailing 
until  men  and  women  were  born  again  into  the  king- 
dom of  God. 

Paul  appealed  to  his  people  even  as  he  appealed 
unto  God  to  bear  witness  that  he  had  behaved  him- 
self holily,  righteously,  and  unblamably  among  them 
at  all  times.  Careful  about  his  conduct,  he  had 
brought  no  disgrace  upon  his  profession;  he  had 
lived  a  holy  life.  He  had  been  righteous  in  all  his 
dealings.  No  one  could  blame  him  for  anything 
he  had  done.  His  character  was  above  reproach. 
He  had  been  an  example  to  the  flock.  His  people 
could  imitate  him  even  as  he  imitated  Christ.  They 
knew  just  what  he  was,  for  they  had  come  to  know 
him  intimately  and  personally. 

Paul  dealt  with  his  people  in  their  homes,  as  a 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  6i 

father  with  his  children.  Not  satisfied  with  preach- 
ing at  them  from  a  pulpit,  he  came  to  close  quarters 
in  personal  conversation  and  private  admonition 
and  instruction.  In  this  way  he  came  to  know  their 
individual  needs  and  could  exhort  and  encourage 
them  as  each  case  demanded.  He  told  them  all  that 
God  called  them  into  his  own  kingdom  and  glory, 
exhorting  them  all  to  walk  worthily  of  God.  He 
followed  up  his  exhortations  with  personal  visits 
and  conversations  until  he  was  sure  that  his  work 
was  not  in  vain.  It  was  slow  work  but  sure  work 
and  was  remarkably  successful.  It  captured  hea- 
then strongholds  and  turned  them  into  centers  of 
the  Christian  faith. 

These  are  the  characteristics  of  Paul's  pastoral 
work :  It  was  full  of  boldness  and  assurance,  truth- 
ful, guileless,  clean,  free  from  flattery  and  self-seek- 
ing, full  of  sympathy  and  affection,  filled  with  labor 
and  travail,  holy,  righteous,  unblamable,  dealing 
with  individuals,  and  eminently  and  continuously 
successful.  It  is  a  model  to  all  Christian  workers 
for  all  time. 

For  Your  Deliberation 

Which  do  you  consider  the  more  important — 
preaching  or  pastoral  work? 

From  which  have  you  received  the  more  good 
through  your  own  life? 


62  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

What  characteristics  would  you  list  for  an  ideal 
pastor?    What  would  you  add  to  Paul's  list  here? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Pastoral  Teaching  of  St.  Paul,  Chadwick. 

Paul  the  Mystic,  Campbell. 

St.  Paul  the  M aster-Builder,  Lock. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  63 


CHAPTER  IX 
PAUL  THE  STATESMAN  AND  WRITER 

Paul  had  a  wider  outlook  than  any  of  the  other 
apostles.  He  took  the  whole  world  for  his  parish, 
believing  that  the  kingdom  of  his  Christ  would  be 
a  far  more  glorious  kingdom  than  that  represented 
by  the  empire  of  Rome.  It  would  be  a  spiritual 
kingdom,  even  as  Jesus  had  taught;  and  it  would 
be  endless  in  duration  and  limitless  in  power,  gather- 
ing into  itself  all  the  nations  of  men,  unifying  and 
making  of  them  one  great  brotherhood  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Paul  set  out  to  be  a  world  conqueror. 
There  was  no  limit  to  his  holy  ambition  except 
the  limit  of  his  physical  strength.  His  plans  always 
outran  his  possibiHties.  As  a  pioneer  missionary 
he  would  have  gone  everywhere  if  that  had  been 
possible  to  one  man  in  one  lifetime. 

As  it  was,  Paul  labored  more  abundantly  than  any 
other  apostle,  doing  all  that  one  man  could  do.  He 
attacked  the  strategic  centers,  working  for  the  most 
part  in  the  great  cities  and  making  of  them  centers 
of  influence  for  all  the  surrounding  communities. 
He  insisted  that  his  Gentile  converts  should  be  free 


64  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

from  the  old  Jewish  ordinances,  for  he  realized  that 
new  peoples  must  have  new  viewpoints  and  new 
customs.  Paul  refused  to  put  new  wine  into  old 
bottles.  He  did  not  attempt  to  force  an  Oriental 
Christianity  upon  the  Occident.  As  long  as  it  was 
true  to  the  fundamentals  of  the  common  faith,  he 
was  ready  to  leave  every  nation  free  to  develop  a 
Christianity  of  its  own  type.  He  knew  that  a 
world-wide  church  could  not  be  a  church  of  uni- 
versal uniformity  in  matters  of  opinion  and  man- 
ners of  Ufe;  it  would  represent  unity  in  difference, 
unity  in  spirit  and  the  essentials  of  the  faith,  with 
widest  liberty  in  everything  else.  Paul's  statesman- 
ship was  manifest  in  his  tolerance,  his  charity,  and 
his  practical  methods  for  the  successful  prosecution 
of  the  campaign  for  the  conquest  of  the  world  for 
his  Christ. 

As  the  great  general  and  organizer  of  this  aggres- 
sive missionary  work  Paul  traveled  more  widely, 
established  more  churches,  made  his  influence  felt 
in  more  of  the  great  cities,  evangelized  more  people, 
and  was  more  successful  in  his  more  abundant 
labors  than  any  of  the  older  apostles.  At  the  same 
time  Paul  added  more  to  the  literature  of  the  primi- 
tive church  than  any  other  member  of  the  apostolic 
circle,  being  the  pioneer  in  this  field  as  in  so  many 
others.  Most  if  not  all  of  his  Epistles  appeared 
before  the  Gospels  or  any  of  the  other  books  of  the 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  65 

New  Testament  were  written.  There  are  thirteen 
of  these  Epistles,  not  including  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews,  which  probably  was  written  by  some 
member  of  the  Pauline  circle,  rather  than  by  Paul 
himself. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that,  so  far  as  we  know,  Paul 
wrote  nothing  during  the  first  fifteen  years  of  his 
life  as  a  Christian ;  and  then,  in  the  last  fifteen  years, 
he  wrote  these  thirteen  Epistles.  It  is  another  curi- 
ous fact  that  the  thirteen  Epistles  were  written  at 
four  different  periods  in  these  fifteen  years  and 
therefore  fall  into  four  groups  separated  from  each 
other  by  intervals  of  approximately  five  years  each. 
Paul's  literary  work  presents  this  strange  appear- 
ance of  periodicity.  For  fifteen  years  he  wrote 
nothing.  Then  he  wrote  two  Epistles,  First  and 
Second  Thessalonians,  within  one  year — about  A.  D. 
53.  Nothing  more  did  he  write  for  about  five 
years.  Then  he  composed  First  and  Second  Corin- 
thians, Galatians,  and  Romans,  probably  within  one 
year's  time — about  A.  D.  58.  After  another  interval 
of  five  years  he  wrote  Philemon,  Colossians,  Ephe- 
sians,  and  Philippians,  and  sent  three  of  them  at 
one  time,  by  one  messenger,  from  Rome  to  Asia 
Minor  about  A.  D.  63.  After  another  interval  of 
nearly  five  years  Paul  wrote  First  Timothy,  Titus, 
and  Second  Timothy  about  A.  D.  67. 

These  four  groups  were,  in  their  order,  those  of 


66  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

the  second  missionary  journey,  those  of  the  third 
missionary  journey,  those  of  the  first  Roman  im- 
prisonment, and  those  written  between  Paul's  Hbera- 
tion  from  the  first  Roman  imprisonment  and  his 
second  imprisonment,  ending  in  his  martyrdom. 
Different  names  have  been  given  to  these  groups 
by  different  persons.  These  names  may  not  exactly 
describe  the  several  groups  but  may  serve  to  label 
and  distinguish  them.  In  their  order  they  have 
been  called  the  primer  Epistles,  the  pillar  Epistles, 
the  prison  Epistles,  and  the  pastoral  Epistles.  In 
their  relation  to  Paul's  ministry  these  groups  have 
been  called  the  missionary,  the  evangelical,  the  edi- 
ficatory,  and  the  valedictory.  With  reference  to 
their  style  or  manner  they  have  been  distinguished 
as  the  didactic,  the  argumentative,  the  contemplative, 
and  the  hortatory.  As  to  their  contents  they  have 
been  classified  as  the  ones  presenting  the  theology 
of  the  last  things,  the  theology  of  salvation,  the 
theology  of  the  person  of  Christ,  and  the  theology 
and  discipline  of  the  church. 

Paul  surpassed  all  others  in  his  missionary  and 
evangelistic  zeal  and  success  and,  in  addition,  has 
made  the  church  and  the  world  his  debtor  by  the 
writing  of  these  Epistles,  which  formulated  the 
Christian  theology  and  set  the  standard  for  the 
Christian  life  through  all  the  centuries.  One  writer 
has  said  of  them :  "They  compress  more  ideas  into 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  67 

fewer  words  than  any  other  writings,  human  or 
divine,  except  the  Gospels.  They  are  of  more  real 
and  genuine  value  to  the  church  than  all  her  later 
systems  of  theology.  For  eighteen  hundred  years 
they  have  nourished  the  faith  of  Christendom  and 
will  do  so  to  the  end  of  time."  It  has  been  said 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans  that  ''the  intelligence 
and  stability  of  any  generation  of  believers  is  ex- 
actly proportioned  to  the  degree  in  which  this  mar- 
rowy and  masculine  treatise  is  studied  and  under- 
stood and  appreciated,"  and  that  statement  might 
be  made  to  include  all  the  Pauline  Epistles.  Luther 
found  the  watchword  of  the  Protestant  Reforma- 
tion, ''justification  by  faith,"  in  the  writings  of 
Paul;  and  Wesley  got  the  inspiration  for  his  great 
revival  movement  from  the  same  source.  All  the 
revivals  of  church  history  have  based  themselves 
upon  the  teachings  of  Paul,  and  it  is  safe  to  predict 
that  this  will  be  true  until  the  missionary  and  evan- 
gelistic work  of  the  church  is  done.  • 

Augustine  was  converted  by  reading  a  sentence 
in  one  of  Paul's  Epistles.  Martin  Luther  was  con- 
verted by  a  study  of  Paul's  doctrine  of  salvation 
by  faith.  John  Wesley  was  converted  while  listen- 
ing to  the  reading  of  Martin  Luther's  preface  to 
Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans.  What  names  can 
equal  these  three  in  their  particular  fields  ?  Augus- 
tine was  the  great  theologian,  Luther  the  great  re- 


68  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

former,  and  Wesley  the  great  evangelist.  They 
were  converted  by  the  study  of  the  writings  of  Paul, 
the  theologian,  reformer,  evangelist,  missionary 
statesman,  and  author  without  a  peer.  We  too 
would  do  well  to  study  these  writings. 

Questions  to  Ponder 

What  is  the  difference  between  a  mere  missionary 
and  a  statesman-missionary  ?  Can  you  illustrate  the 
latter  class? 

Tell  why  you  would  call  these  missionaries  also 
statesmen. 

Which  would  you  consider  more  valuable  to  the 
church — Paul's  work  or  his  writing? 

Which  would  you  prefer  to  be — a  great  author 
or  a  great  statesman  ?    Why  ? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul,  Conybeare  and 
Howson. 

The  Life  and  Work  of  St.  Paul,  Farrar. 

Paul  of  Tarsus,  Bird. 

Paul  and  His  Epistles,  Hayes. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  69 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  UNKNOWN  APOSTOLATE 

Peter  and  Paul  are  the  two  heroes  of  the  book 
of  Acts.  Others  of  the  apostles  and  evangelists  of 
the  new  faith  are  mentioned,  but  the  larger  part  of 
the  book  has  to  do  with  the  work  of  these  two  men. 
The  four  Gospels  give  us  the  history  of  Jesus,  and 
the  book  of  Acts  gives  us  the  history  of  the  begin- 
nings of  the  Christian  church  as  founded  by  Peter 
and  propagated  by  Paul.  There  are  no  other  his- 
torical books  in  the  New  Testament;  and  when  the 
narrative  of  these  books  fails  us,  we  are  left  to  con- 
jecture or  to  tradition  for  all  our  details  of  informa- 
tion in  this  field.  We  are  told  that  Thomas  went  to 
India  with  the  gospel  message,  that  Peter  preached 
in  Rome,  and  that  John  labored  for  many  years  in 
Ephesus  and  throughout  Asia  Minor.  There  are 
apocryphal  Acts  of  Peter,  Paul,  John,  Andrew,  and 
Thomas;  but  little  confidence  can  be  given  to  their 
absurd  fabrications.  For  three  centuries  of  Chris- 
tian history  we  have  no  biographies  of  any  of  the 
missionaries  or  members  of  the  Christian  Church 
which  will  compare  with  those  of  Peter  and  Paul 


70  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

in  the  book  of  Acts.  We  know  little  or  nothing  of 
their  conversions  or  the  development  of  their  char- 
acters or  the  methods  and  measures  of  their  success. 

Yet  in  these  three  centuries  the  Christian  faith 
was  spread  through  the  whole  of  the  civilized  world 
of  that  day.  At  the  close  of  the  third  century  the 
empire  had  been  conquered  by  the  faithful  preachers 
of  the  Christian  truth.  The  emperor  professed  to 
be  a  Christian.  The  heathen  religions  were  over- 
thrown. Christianity  was  the  dominant  power  in 
the  world.  How  was  this  great  change  brought 
about  ?  Who  was  responsible  for  this  great  victory  ? 
There  is  no  one  outstanding  personality  to  whom 
the  credit  must  be  given.  The  work  was  done,  and 
the  great  triumph  won  by  the  unknown  apostolate — 
the  humble  workers  in  the  rank  and  file  whose 
names  are  in  the  book  of  life,  but  whose  labors  were 
not  recorded  in  any  history  either  within  or  without 
the  Holy  Book. 

When  the  risen  Jesus  appeared  to  the  assembled 
disciples  he  said  to  them,  ''Peace  he  unto  you:  as 
the  Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you.''  In 
the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  Jesus  is  called  "the 
Apostle  .  .  .  of  our  confession."  The  Father  had 
sent  him  to  proclaim  his  will  and  to  preach  his 
gospel,  and  in  that  upper  room  Jesus  commissioned 
his  disciples  to  carry  on  the  work  he  had  begun. 
Not  only  the  twelve  but  all  his  followers  were  to 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  71 

be  apostles  of  the  faith.  In  the  New  Testament 
the  name  "apostle"  is  given  to  the  twelve  and  to 
Paul,  Barnabas,  Silas,  Andronicus,  and  Junias ;  and 
there  seems  to  be  no  definite  limitation  to  its  appli- 
cation among  the  missionary  preachers  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith.  Anyone  who  was  "sent  forth"  by  the 
Father  and  by  the  church  to  devote  himself  to  the 
spread  of  the  gospel  through  the  world  was  a  recog- 
nized apostle,  and  it  is  in  this  wider  sense  of  the 
term  that  we  use  it  here.  There  were  those  in  the 
church  who  were  set  apart  for  continuous  itinerant 
evangelistic  work.  They  traveled  from  place  to 
place  and  without  salary  sought  to  proclaim  the 
truth  and  to  make  converts  to  the  faith.  They  were 
in  a  sense  pubHc  officials,  and  their  work  was  that 
of  pioneers.  They  may  have  laid  the  foundations, 
but  the  church  was  built  and  established  in  each 
community  by  the  faithful  few  who  remained  at 
their  posts  and  exemplified  the  good  of  the  Christian 
faith  in  their  lives.  A  brother  brought  a  brother 
into  the  Christian  brotherhood,  and  a  friend  brought 
a  friend.  Most  of  the  converts  came  into  the  church 
in  that  way,  as  the  result  of  personal  effort  on  the 
part  of  neighbors  and  friends.  Peter  was  convinced 
by  a  private  conversation.  Nathanael  was  brought 
to  investigate  by  the  newfound  joy  of  his  fellow 
townsman.  The  eunuch  was  converted  by  a  road- 
side talk.     Timothy  was  made  a  Christian  by  a 


y2  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

mother's  instructions  and  a  grandmother's  prayers. 
These  New  Testament  examples  are  types  of  the 
methods  God  has  blessed  most  in  the  whole  history 
of  the  church.  Zealous  new  converts  like  Andrew 
and  Philip  the  apostle,  colporteurs  and  evangelists 
like  Philip  the  deacon,  faithful  Christian  mothers 
and  grandmothers  like  Eunice  and  Lois,  have  from 
the  very  beginning  sought  out  friends  and  neigh- 
bors, talked  to  strangers  and  to  sons,  told  of  their 
own  newfound  revelation  of  truth  and  their  own 
experience  of  salvation  and  satisfaction  for  their 
minds  and  their  souls;  and  more  people  have  been 
brought  into  the  church  in  that  way  than  in  any 
other. 

It  was  no  easy  task  to  be  a  Christian,  and  it  was 
no  easy  task  to  make  a  Christian  in  those  beginning 
days  of  church  history.  It  never  is  an  easy  thing 
to  turn  the  world  upside  down  while  you  yourself 
are  living  in  it  and  on  it ;  yet  that  is  what  the  Chris- 
tians set  out  to  do.  They  had  to  combat  the  preju- 
dices and  the  customs  established  through  the  cen- 
turies; they  had  to  undermine  and  overthrow  the 
ancient  idolatries;  they  had  to  turn  a  sinning  and 
licentious  heathen  world  into  the  kingdom  of  the 
Lord  Christ.  The  priests  were  against  them,  the 
political  powers  were  against  them,  and  all  the 
forces  of  evil  were  active  then  as  now  to  prevent 
the  triumph  of  righteousness  upon  the  earth.     Yet 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  73 

one  by  one  individuals  were  attracted,  convinced, 
and  converted;  and  every  transformed  life  became 
an  epistle  read  and  known  of  all  in  his  acquaintance. 
Every  Christian  was  a  sermon  in  shoes;  and  Jews 
and  Samaritans  and  barbarians  and  Greeks  and 
Romans,  officials  and  philosophers,  soldiers  and 
slaves,  heard  the  message,  saw  the  results,  and  con- 
cluded that  the  Christian  faith  was  worth  having 
both  for  this  life  and  the  life  that  was  to  come. 

In  this  way  the  faith  swept  over  the  lands.  It 
"spread  from  generation  to  generation  with  incon- 
ceivable rapidity.  Seventy  years  after  the  founda- 
tion of  the  very  first  Gentile  Christian  church  in 
Syrian  Antioch,  Pliny  wrote  in  the  strongest  terms 
about  the  spread  of  Christianity  throughout  remote 
Bithynia — a  spread  which  in  his  view  already 
threatened  the  stability  of  other  cults  throughout 
the  province.  Seventy  years  later  still  the  Paschal 
controversy  reveals  the  existence  of  a  Christian 
federation  of  churches,  stretching  from  Lyons  to 
Edessa,  with  its  headquarters  situated  at  Rome. 
Seventy  years  later,  again,  the  Emperor  Decius 
declared  he  would  sooner  have  a  rival  emperor  in 
Rome  than  a  Christian  bishop.  And  ere  another 
seventy  years  had  passed,  the  cross  was  sewn  upon 
the  Roman  colors."  This  is  the  conclusion  reached 
at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of  Harnack's  study 
of  the  expansion  of  Christianity.     He  thinks  that 


74  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

the  church  fathers  were  justified  in  their  beHef  that 
the  Christian  faith  had  had  a  most  astonishing  and 
unparalleled  growth  in  the  world. 

What  were  the  reasons  for  this  world  conquest? 
There  were  two  reasons :  first,  the  gospel  itself ;  and 
second,  the  unknown  apostles,  who  believed  it 
and  received  it  and  realized  it  and  lived  it  and 
preached  it  in  both  life  and  death.  The  gospel  itself 
was  superior  to  all  other  world  faiths.  It  all  cen- 
tered about  the  person,  the  life,  the  words,  and  the 
works  of  Jesus,  the  crucified  and  risen  Lord. 
He  was  a  Saviour — a  Saviour  from  sin.  He  had 
taught  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God  and  the 
universal  brotherhood  of  man.  The  love  and 
charity  he  had  commanded  were  made  possible 
through  the  Holy  Spirit  he  had  promised  and  had 
sent.  The  Christian  church  had  an  authoritative 
Book,  an  adaptable  organization,  a  mystical  experi- 
ence, practical  methods  of  social  relief,  a  spiritual 
power  transforming  individuals  and  reforming  com- 
munities and  promising  a  new  and  better  world.  Its 
converts  were  its  testimonials;  its  recruits  were  its 
evangelists.  The  unknown  apostles  carried  its 
banners  to  victory.  They  believed  that  they  had  the 
gospel  of  life  and  immortality,  and  that  their  Jesus 
was  to  be  King  over  all. 

At  the  end  of  the  second  century  Tertullian  wrote 
to  the  heathen :  "We  are  but  of  yesterday.    Yet  we 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  75 

have  filled  all  your  places — cities,  villages,  markets, 
the  camp  itself,  the  palace,  the  senate,  the  forum. 
All  we  have  left  to  you  is  your  temples."  There 
were  leaders  in  this  army  of  world  conquerors,  but 
the  work  was  done  mainly  and  almost  wholly  by 
the  rank  and  file,  unknown  to  the  world  histories 
but  apostles  of  the  Father  and  his  gospel  for  men 
and  with  their  names  written  and  known  in  the 
records  of  heaven.  They  were  heroes  too — heroic 
in  effort  and,  some  of  them,  in  martyrdom.  We 
give  them  the  immeasurable  credit  which  is  their 
due. 

For  You  to  Think  About 

Which  would  you  prefer — a  great  leader  or  a 
faithful  church? 

Are  there  apostles  in  the  church  to-day  ?  Do  you 
know  any? 

What  would  you  consider  the  duties  of  an  apostle 
to-day  ? 

What  reasons  have  you  for  thinking  that  Chris- 
tianity ever  will  be  a  world  religion  ? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Expansion  of  Christianity,  Harnack. 

The  Times  of  the  Apostles,  Hausrath. 

History  of  the  Christian  Church:  Vol.  I,  Apos- 
tolic Christianity :  Vol.  II,  Ante-Nicene  Christianity, 
Schaff. 


76  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

CHAPTER  XI 
JOHN  THE  BELOVED 

Peter  was  the  apostle  appointed  to  found  the 
Christian  church;  Paul  was  the  chosen  vessel  to 
carry  the  gospel  message  through  Gentile  lands. 
John  is  known  as  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loved. 
Peter  was  the  originator,  a  bold  aggressive  spirit 
capable  of  splendid  and  audacious  things;  Paul 
united  intellectual  force  and  practical  energy  and 
was  the  able  and  successful  champion  of  Chris- 
tianity before  the  bar  of  the  world.  John  was 
intuitive  and  receptive,  subordinate  to  these  great 
leaders  in  the  beginning  but  outliving  them  both 
and  carrying  on  and  completing  their  work  to  the 
end  of  the  first  Christian  century. 

In  all  probability  John  was  born  in  Bethsaida,  the 
city  of  Peter  and  Andrew  and  Philip.  His  father's 
name  was  Zebedee,  and  his  mother's  name  Salome. 
James  was  his  brother — probably  older,  since  his 
name  usually  precedes  that  of  John  when  they  are 
mentioned  together  in  the  New  Testament  books. 
The  family  seems  to  have  been  comparatively  well 
to  do,  having  servants  in  their  employ.  Salome 
ministered  to  Jesus  and  his  disciples  of  her  sub- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  yy 

stance.  John  received  Mary  the  mother  of  Jesus 
into  his  own  home  after  the  crucifixion.  John  and 
James  aspired  to  the  chief  places  in  the  kingdom 
and  asked  to  sit  the  one  on  the  right  hand,  and  the 
other  on  the  left  hand  of  the  King  when  he  came  to 
be  enthroned. 

Salome  was  a  good  woman  and  a  good  mother, 
probably  giving  her  sons  religious  training.  As  soon 
as  John  the  Baptist  began  preaching  at  the  Jordan, 
her  two  sons  were  attracted  by  the  new  prophetic 
note  in  his  message  and  became  his  disciples.  When 
John  the  Baptist  pointed  out  Jesus  as  the  Lamb  of 
God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,  they 
became  the  disciples  of  Jesus.  When  the  apostolic 
band  of  twelve  was  formed,  John  and  James  be- 
longed to  the  first  group  of  four,  sharing  that  honor 
with  Peter  and  Andrew.  When  the  Master  chose 
three  of  his  disciples  to  be  with  him  in  the  raising 
of  the  daughter  of  Jairus  and  on  the  mount  of 
transfiguration  and  in  the  garden  of  Gethsemane, 
John  and  James  were  two  of  the  three,  and  Peter 
alone  ranked  with  them.  When  two  of  the  dis- 
ciples were  sent  to  prepare  for  that  last  Passover 
meal,  Peter  and  John  were  the  two  appointed  to 
that  task.  At  the  Last  Supper  the  place  nearest 
the  Master  was  reserved  for  his  favorite  among 
the  twelve,  and  that  place  was  yielded  without 
question  to  John. 


78  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

John  was  the  last  of  the  apostles  to  remain  near 
the  cross  on  which  the  Master  was  hung  and  was 
the  first  of  the  apostles  to  reach  the  open  tomb  on 
the  resurrection  day.  He  was  also  the  first  of  them 
to  grasp  the  resurrection  faith.  He  was  with  the 
disciples  in  the  upper  room  at  the  time  of  the  bap- 
tism at  Pentecost  and  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
church  in  Jerusalem  for  some  years  following  that 
great  experience.  Tradition  says  that  he  moved 
later  to  Ephesus  and,  being  exiled  to  the  island  of 
Patmos,  there  had  the  visions  of  the  book  of  Revela- 
tion, setting  forth  the  struggles  and  the  victories  of 
the  Christian  Church.  Later  he  wrote  the  fourth 
Gospel  and  the  three  short  Epistles  that  bear  his 
name.  He  was  the  last  of  the  apostles  to  survive 
and  lived  to  near  the  close  of  the  first  Christian 
century.  In  his  last  years  all  tradition  unites  in 
affirming  that  he  was  the  beloved  leader  of  the 
church,  reverenced  for  his  saintliness  and  for  the 
fact  that  during  Christ's  ministry  he  had  been  the 
Master's  most  beloved  disciple  and  friend. 

What  gave  John  this  position  of  preeminence  in 
the  apostolic  company?  What  made  him  the  dis- 
ciple whom  Jesus  loved?  It  must  have  been  that 
his  character  was  such  as  to  be  attractive  to  Jesus, 
and  it  must  have  been  that  John  loved  Jesus  more 
than  any  of  the  other  disciples  did.  Love  begets 
love.    Affinity  of  spirit  is  found  in  likeness  of  aim 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  79 

and  disposition.  John  had  a  very  real  love  for 
Jesus,  and  his  character  was  most  like  that  of  his 
Lord.  Therefore,  he  stood  nearest  to  Jesus  and 
was  dearest  to  him.  That  was  the  greatest  distinc- 
tion anyone  could  win.  What  made  John  so  lovable 
to  Jesus  ?  What  were  the  elements  of  his  character 
which  drew  him  to  Jesus  and  in  turn  drew  Jesus  to 
him? 

Jesus  called  John  and  James  "Sons  of  thunder." 
They  were  men  who  could  flash  fire  upon  occasion. 
Both  James  and  John  had  a  high  degree  of  moral 
strength,  a  sublime  courage  that  did  not  fail  in 
critical  times,  and  intense  convictions  that  were  not 
swayed  by  every  breeze.  They  were  capable  of  a 
holy  heroism  that  would  enable  them  to  drink  of 
the  cup  of  which  the  Master  drank  without  flinching 
from  the  supreme  sacrifice.  James  was  the  first  of 
the  apostles  to  be  martyred.  His  boldness  and  his 
courage  made  him  a  marked  man  among  the  Chris- 
tians, and  he  was  the  first  to  suffer  the  extreme 
penalty  for  his  loyalty  to  the  cause.  John  was  just  as 
brave  and  as  loyal  as  he,  and  it  is  one  of  the  strange 
providences  of  God  that  he  was  permitted  to  out- 
live all  the  other  apostles  and  then  to  die  a  natural 
and  peaceful  death.  He  thundered  against  sin  and 
sinners  as  long  as  he  lived.  Jesus  loved  him  for 
his  loyalty  to  the  truth  and  the  singleness  of  his 
devotion  and  his  manifest  hatred  for  all  that  was 


8o  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

opposed  to  the  Master  and  his  cause.  He  was  like 
Jesus  in  refusing  to  compromise  with  evil  or  to 
call  things  by  any  but  their  right  names. 

John  could  be  filled  with  righteous  indignation. 
At  times  he  could  flame  with  holy  anger.  A  man 
can  call  other  men  the  children  of  the  devil  and 
fools  and  hypocrites  and  snakes  and  the  offspring 
of  snakes  and  still  be  a  saint.  We  know  that  is  true 
because  Jesus  did  it.  John  was  like  Jesus.  He 
called  Judas  a  devil  and  the  son  of  perdition,  and 
said  that  every  sinner  was  a  child  of  the  devil,  that 
every  professing  Christian  who  walked  in  the  dark- 
ness of  sin  was  a  liar,  and  that  everyone  who  hated 
his  brother  was  a  murderer.  He  was  a  son  of 
thunder  when  it  came  to  denouncing  unrighteous- 
ness of  any  kind.  He  was  as  vehement  in  language 
as  Jesus  himself,  and  Jesus  loved  him  for  his  un- 
compromising fidelity. 

John  was  attracted  by  goodness  and  strength. 
John  the  Baptist  seemed  to  him  a  great  genius  with 
genuine  prophetic  fire,  so  he  left  his  nets  to  be- 
come John's  disciple.  Jesus  was  greater  than  John 
the  Baptist,  so  all  the  devotion  of  the  young  man's 
life  was  laid  at  his  feet.  In  the  company  of  the 
apostles  Peter  seemed  to  be  the  strongest  character, 
and  John  attached  himself  to  him;  and  after  the 
Master's  death  Peter  and  John  seem  to  have  been 
inseparable  companions.     He  was  a  modest,  mi- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  8i 

assuming,  self-effacing,  devoted  companion  and 
helper  to  these  men,  and  they  all  prized  him  highly 
for  his  reverence  and  love. 

John  was  a  seer.  His  eyes  were  the  first  to  recog- 
nize Jesus  on  the  shore  of  the  sea  when  he  appeared 
to  the  disciples  after  the  resurrection.  It  was  intui- 
tion as  much  as  vision  which  led  him  to  say  with 
all  certainty,  "It  is  the  Lord."  He  apparently  saw 
deep  into  the  heart  of  Jesus,  and  that  made  him 
capable  of  remembering  and  recording  the  great 
spiritual  truths  of  the  fourth  Gospel.  He  saw 
further  into  the  future  history  of  the  church  than 
did  any  of  his  fellow  apostles,  and  that  made 
him  capable  of  picturing  the  struggles  and  the 
triumphs  of  the  church  to  the  very  end.  The  eagle 
is  his  symbol.  His  keen  eye  could  see  beyond  the 
clouds  and  could  look  steadily  into  the  face  of  the 
Fountain  of  Light  and  Truth. 

John  had  the  simplicity  of  the  child  in  his  charac- 
ter. He  had  the  child's  intuition  of  goodness  and 
admiration  for  greatness.  After  the  deaths  of  Peter 
and  Paul  he  came  to  the  place  of  primacy  in  the 
Christian  Church.  Peter  had  laid  the  foundations, 
and  Paul  had  built  a  stately  structure;  John  put 
the  pinnacles  and  the  finishing  touches  upon  the 
edifice  of  the  Christian  faith.  He  had  been  the 
first  of  the  three  to  come  to  Jesus.  In  the  providence 
of  God  he  was  reserved  to  the  last  to  complete  the 


S2  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

work  of  the  apostolic  age.  Peter  is  the  apostle  of 
hope,  Paul  the  apostle  of  faith,  and  John  the  apostle 
of  love,  which  is  the  greatest  of  all. 

For  Thoughtful  Consideration 

Would  you  have  loved  John  more  than  any  other 
apostle?    If  so,  why? 

Do  you  think  a  radical  or  a  conservative  is  the 
more  useful  to  the  church,  and  why  ? 

How  do  John's  style  and  thought  compare  with 
those  of  Peter  and  Paul? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

John,  Whom  Jesus  Loved,  Culross. 

The  Two  Johns  of  the  New  Testament,  Stalker. 

John  and  His  Writings,  Hayes. 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  83 


CHAPTER  Xn 

HOW  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  WAS 
WRITTEN 

The  New  Testament  church  was  a  church  with- 
out the  New  Testament.  It  had  a  Bible,  but  its 
Bible  was  the  Old  Testament.  If  the  preachers  of 
the  new  faith  had  any  book  in  their  hands,  it  was 
the  book  of  the  Old  Testament  Scriptures.  They 
found  many  of  their  texts  and  much  of  the  sub- 
stance of  their  preaching  in  that  volume  and  read 
from  it  for  their  edification,  finding  much  in  it 
which  was  profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  and  for  instruction  in  righteousness. 
They  had  no  other  sacred  book  to  put  beside  it  as 
we  put  the  New  Testament  beside  the  Old  Testa- 
ment in  our  Bibles  to-day.  Paul  may  have  lived 
and  died  without  seeing  a  written  Gospel.  He  knew 
all  about  the  gospel  message  and  he  preached  it 
with  power  wherever  he  went,  but  it  may  be  that 
he  never  saw  a  Gospel  in  manuscript  or  book  form. 
It  was  almost  a  generation  after  the  death  of  Jesus 
before  the  first  of  our  Gospels  was  written,  and  at 


84  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

least  two  generations  had  passed  away  before  the 
last  of  our  Gospels  came  into  existence.  Three  or 
four  centuries  passed  before  the  various  books  that 
made  up  our  New  Testament  were  collected  into 
a  single  volume.  For  the  first  one  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  our  era  the  Old  Testament  was  the 
one  and  only  sacred  volume  in  the  Christian  Church. 
The  New  Testament  church,  the  church  of  the  first 
fifty  or  sixty  years  of  our  era,  had  no  New  Testa- 
ment. 

It  is  interesting  to  remember  that  in  the  beginning 
the  Christian  Church  had  no  book  of  its  own  upon 
which  to  rely  for  its  authority  either  in  form  of 
organization  or  in  substance  of  faith,  as  the  Mo- 
hammedans had  in  the  Koran,  or  the  Mormons  in 
the  Book  of  Mormon,  or  the  Christian  Scientists  in 
Science  and  Health.  The  Christian  Church  was 
not  founded  upon  a  book.  The  church  came  first, 
and  the  book  came  afterward,  just  as  the  great 
war  came  first,  and  a  flood  of  books  about  the 
war  came  later.  Jesus  founded  the  church,  and  he 
founded  it  upon  his  own  life  and  teaching  and 
preaching.  We  have  no  record  of  his  writing  any- 
thing except  when  he  wrote  a  few  words  with  his 
finger  in  the  dust  of  the  Temple  floor,  and  we  do 
not  know  what  those  words  were.  He  was  content 
with  self-revelation  in  his  daily  life  and  his  spoken 
words.     He  wrote  no  books  and  did  not  command 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  85 

the  writing  of  any  books;  and  for  years  after  his 
death  no  one  of  his  disciples  thought  of  writing  a 
book. 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  this  was  true.  In  the  first 
place,  the  apostles  were  not  literary  men.  No  one 
of  them  ever  had  written  a  book;  and  as  laborers, 
men  of  the  open  air  rather  than  of  the  study  or  the 
library  or  the  school,  they  had  no  liking  for  writing. 
They  could  tell  their  story  wherever  they  went  and 
they  much  preferred  telling  it  to  writing  it.  It  was 
much  easier  for  unlettered  Gahlaeans  to  talk  than 
to  write. 

Then,  in  the  second  place,  that  was  all  the  Master 
had  asked  them  to  do.  He  had  told  th' m  to  go 
into  all  the  world  and  preach  his  gospel  to  every 
creature.  They  could  do  that  and  they  could  do 
it  well.  They  were  qualified  witnesses.  They  had 
important  news  to  tell  and  they  could  not  but  speak 
the  things  which  they  had  seen  and  heard.  Their 
incessant  evangelism  left  them  little  or  no  time  for 
writing  even  if  they  had  had  any  inclination  for  it. 

In  the  third  place,  it  was  the  custom  in  all  the 
Jewish  schools  for  all  the  instruction  to  be  given 
orally.  No  rabbi  committed  anything  to  writing. 
It  was  his  business  simply  to  interpret  and  not  to 
write  anything  new.  As  far  as  the  disciples  were 
influenced  by  the  traditions  and  the  prejudices  of 
their  race  they  would  not  think  of  sitting  down  to 


86  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

write  either  a  history  or  a  biography  or  a  manual 
of  doctrine. 

Then,  in  the  fourth  place,  all  of  the  first  disciples 
seem  to  have  had  the  idea  that  their  Lord  would 
soon  return.  If  he  were  coming  a  second  time,  and 
coming  soon,  what  need  was  there  of  writing  any- 
thing about  his  first  coming?  He  soon  would  be 
on  hand  himself  to  say  and  do  all  that  was  necessary 
for  the  good  of  his  church.  For  all  these  reasons 
we  can  see  how  natural  it  was  for  the  first  genera- 
tion of  Christian  believers  to  be  content  without  any 
written  memorials  of  their  faith. 

Sir  Thomas  More  was  right  when  he  said  that 
the  gospel  was  first  spread  abroad  through  the  world 
by  words  and  preaching  without  writing  of  any 
sort,  that  the  faith  came  into  men's  ears  and  was 
written  in  men's  hearts  before  any  word  of  it  was 
written  in  a  book,  and  that  no  evangelist  and  no 
apostle  ever  sent  the  faith  to  any  nation  in  writing 
until  they  were  informed  that  God  had  begun  his 
church  in  that  place;  and  Sir  Thomas  adds  that 
he  has  no  doubt  that  if  the  gospel  never  had  been 
written,  the  substance  of  the  faith  never  would 
have  fallen  out  of  Christian  hearts,  but  the  same 
Spirit  who  first  planted  it  would  have  preserved  it 
there  and  have  increased  it  through  the  years. 
That  may  be  true ;  yet  we  may  be  profoundly  thank- 
ful that  in  process  of  time  the  New  Testament  was 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  87 

a  felt  need  in  the  church,  and  that  when  the  need 
was  felt  it  was  supplied. 

As  long  as  Jesus  and  the  apostles  lived  they  were 
final  authorities  on  all  matters  of  the  faith;  but  the 
substance  of  their  teaching  had  to  be  repeated  by 
others;  and  as  different  persons  gave  different  re- 
ports, it  became  necessary  to  have  some  recognized 
standard  that  would  be  an  authority  upon  all  these 
things. 

Somebody  wrote  down  a  collection  of  the  say- 
ings of  Jesus  first  of  all.  Many  undertook  to  make 
a  narrative  of  his  life.  Mark  made  a  record  of 
the  preaching  of  Peter.  Matthew  combined  the 
sources  at  hand  into  another,  longer  book.  Luke, 
the  Gentile,  with  the  Greek  historians  as  his  models, 
worked  over  the  same  gospel  story  and  made  exten- 
sive additions  out  of  his  personal  investigations 
and  put  it  all  into  more  literary  form.  He  wrote 
for  a  friend  and  patron  nam„ed  Theophilus,  and  his 
account  of  the  life  of  Jesus  v^sls  so  satisfactory  that 
the  same  patron  asked  him  to  write  another  book 
giving  the  account  of  the  growth  of  the  Christian 
Church  from  Jerusalem  to  Rome.  So  Luke  wrote 
the  book  of  Acts. 

These  writings  sufficed  the  church  until  all  the 
apostles  except  Andrew  and  John  had  died.  Then 
John  wrote  a  fourth  Gospel — a  more  spiritual  and 
more  doctrinal  narrative,  supplementing  and  com- 


88  GREAT  CHARACTERS  OF 

pleting  the  accounts  of  the  other  three.  He  had 
written  the  book  of  Revelation  some  twenty  or  thirty- 
years  before,  and  his  second  and  third  Epistles; 
and  he  appended  the  first  Epistle  to  his  Gospel  narra- 
tive as  a  sort  of  practical  summary  of  its  contents. 
Other  Epistles  had  been  written  during  the  first 
century  by  Paul  and  Peter  and  James  and  Jude,  and 
some  unknown  author  had  composed  our  Epistle 
addressed  to  the  Hebrews  alone.  These  Epistles 
were  either  called  forth  by  special  emergencies  in 
local  churches  or  were  sent  out  as  circular  letters 
for  use  in  whole  districts  or  in  the  whole  church. 

At  first  there  was  no  thought  of  using  them  as 
Scriptures  or  of  collecting  them  into  a  sacred  Book. 
It  was  only  when  heretics  began  to  claim  apostolic 
authority  for  their  doctrines  that  the  church  began 
to  realize  that  it  ought  to  have  a  recognized  list  of 
books  to  which  it  could  appeal  as  final  authority  in 
setting  forth  the  apostolic  faith.  Then  the  writings 
of  the  apostles  and  of  the  apostolic  days  began  to 
be  collected.  They  had  been  scattered  here  and 
there  throughout  the  church;  but  as  copies  were 
exchanged,  every  added  book  became  a  treasure 
and  was  read  in  the  public  services,  establishing 
itself  in  the  confidence  and  the  esteem  of  the  people. 
At  last  church  councils  and  other  church  authorities 
officially  determined  a  list  of  books  containing  the 
Christian  verity  as  having  come  down  from  apes- 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT  89 

tolic  times  and  as  having  proved  their  usefulness 
for  edification  in  the  church. 

The  New  Testament  books,  written  in  the  first 
century,  were  recognized  as  Scriptures  in  another 
century  and  in  two  more  centuries  had  estabhshed 
themselves  as  an  authoritative  canon,  equal  to  the 
Old  Testament  in  value  and  superior  to  it  in  revela- 
tion, in  the  Christian  Church. 

For  Further  Thought  and  Study 

Do  you  think  it  would  have  been  an  advantage 
to  have  a  certified  verbatim  report  of  the  teaching 
of  Jesus?    If  so,  why? 

How  do  you  think  a  New  Testament  book  ought 
to  be  certified  ? 

What  books  of  the  New  Testament  do  you  regard 
as  the  most  valuable,  and  why  ? 

Do  you  know  any  books  outside  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  valuable  to  you  as  some  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment books? 

Books  for  Reading  and  Study 

The  Gospel  History  and  Its  Transmission,  Bur- 
kitt. 

The  Making  of  the  New  Testament,  Bacon. 
The  Rise  of  the  New  Testament,  Muzzey. 


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Great  characters  of  the  New  Testament. 


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